Defence dismisses observations
Former BES boss Ricardo Salgado’s potential ‘Get out of Jail’ card (his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s) appears to have been put at risk by observations by two ‘experts from the Institute of Legal Medicine’.
The experts do not disagree with the 79-year-old’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, but they suggest he could be exaggerating the symptoms – at least one did, and she is not a neuropsychologist, argue Mr Salgado’s defence team.
For three hours, Ricardo Salgado’s lawyers “tried to dismantle the medical assessments”, says SIC. A great deal depends on their success: Mr Salgado already faces eight years behind bars, and there are more criminal cases and charges against him still to be decided.
According to the two experts, the former ‘boss-of-all-this’ at BES bank, and in the wider GES empire, did not answer their questions ‘typically’.
Says SIC, the experts explained that Alzheimer’s mainly damages recent memory: thus the fact that Mr Salgado remembered the book he was reading, but not the names of his children, did not tally with their perception of a typical Alzheimer’s patient.
The two experts also suggested Mr Salgado did not “try hard enough” to answer their questions. One went as far as to say Ricardo Salgado “doesn’t have very serious intellectual deficits, and that he can answer complex questions, although his memory capacity is affected”.
Defence lawyer Francisco Proença de Carvalho, visibly frustrated, told journalists afterwards that this all has to be taken in the context that Mr Salgado also answered that he was 88 (when he is 79), that the year is 1985, and the month July (when he was questioned in November). “My client didn’t know what day of the week it was… I really shouldn’t need to say any more.”
As for the criticism that Mr Salgado didn’t try hard enough to answer the questions put to him by the experts, this stemmed from his replies “I don’t know”. According to one of the experts, “normally an Alzheimer’s patient does not say ‘I don’t know. It is not typical of an Alzheimer’s patient. When (people) say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t remember’ it is an indication of lack of effort… An Alzheimer’s patient answers incorrectly, but makes the effort to answer”.
Says SIC, this is the ‘diagnosis’ that one can find in books on psychiatry (not neuropsychology, which Mr Salgado’s defence argues is a very specific area).
Now judges will have to decide whether or not Ricardo Salgado is ‘fit enough’ to be questioned in court, in the case known as ‘EDP’ in which he faces charges of active corruption (two counts) and money laundering (one count).
The former banking boss already has an eight year jail term ‘confirmed’ against him, but his defence/ his family are trusting that this will be waived because of his condition.
