Finance Minister’s husband in abusive texting scandal

As if Portugal’s finance minister Maria Luís Albuquerque didn’t already have enough on her plate, her hot-headed husband António is now in the limelight for sending abusive and threatening texts to a journalist.
Contacted over the controversy, António Albuquerque has confirmed that he did indeed send the texts and he is not prepared to apologise for them. “I prefer to go before a judge,” he told reporters.
The former journalist with Diário Económico is understood to have taken issue with an opinion article written by a former colleague.
Intriguingly, the article was entitled “What happens if Novo Banco is sold for a loss?”
It is an extremely valid question, as there is almost no banker or banking expert left standing who will attest to Novo Banco being worth the €3.9 billion that the Portuguese government spent bailing it out in the BES debacle.
But for some reason – perhaps he was trying to protect his wife? – António Albuquerque took issue with the story.
The day it came out, he is alleged to have sent journalist Filipe Alves a very rude text, to the effect that “we always knew you had no backbone, now we realise you are a piece of excrement”.
Alves, no doubt surprised at the unsolicited feedback, replied that he had taken the matter up with his superiors and that a “decision would be taken”.
Albuquerque’s reply poured further invective into the fire, accusing Alves and his boss of being cuckolds (something no self-respecting Portuguese man can take lying down or indeed standing up).
Albuquerque is then alleged to have told Alves to go somewhere very unpleasant – adding that if he tried to “involve my wife” (the finance minister) in the noise” he could be certain that he would pay for it in hospital.
As Maria Luís Albuquerque is now well and truly involved in the noise – a photograph of her rather tired face is highlighted in one of today’s morning papers – it was reported that the finance ministry has declined to comment.
Meantime, the case has been passed to DIAP (the department of penal investigation).
By NATASHA DONN