The seemingly endless saga of litigation surrounding former Socialist prime minister José Sócrates – famously jailed in 2014/15 over a complicated corruption probe – hit another corner this week as appeal court judges overturned the devastating rulings of a former judge (himself the subject of disciplinary procedures) and ordered that the whole issue return to the lower court from which it came. Sócrates’ defence lawyer Pedro de Lille has said the decision means his client “has been completely exonerated. Everything he was accused of has fallen” – but there is still the issue of 22 crimes (three of which relate to alleged corruption) in the wider Operation Marquês case.
Court of Appeal throws new curved ball into Sócrates saga
