Manuel Pinho and Ricardo Salgado have been found guilty of having a “corruptive pact”
Portugal’s former Economy Minister Manuel Pinho and former Banco Espírito Santo (BES) chairman Ricardo Salgado were sentenced this Thursday (June 6) to 10 years and six years and three months in prison, respectively, in the so-called ‘EDP Case’ trial.
The panel of judges, chaired by magistrate Ana Paula Rosa from Lisbon’s Central Criminal Court, also handed the ex-minister’s wife, Alexandra Pinho, a four-year, eight-month suspended sentence.
As Lusa news agency explains, the sentences are the result of the legal combination of the sentences served for offences including corruption, tax fraud, and money laundering.
The court proved the existence of a corruptive pact between Manuel Pinho and Ricardo Salgado between 2005 and 2009, with a view to defending and promoting the interests of the Espírito Santo Group (GES) while the former was in government.
In an abridged reading of the 700-page judgement, the presiding judge also stressed that Manuel Pinho and Alexandra Pinho received around €4.9 million as part of the quid pro quo established in this agreement.
“The defendant Manuel Pinho also knew that by accepting pecuniary advantages that were not his due, he was trading in public office, jeopardising public trust,” the judge said, stressing that Ricardo Salgado and Manuel Pinho “knew that they were damaging the country’s image and undermining public trust” with their conduct.
Ana Paula Rosa also considered Manuel Pinho’s statements in court to explain the situations attributed to him by the prosecution to be “untrue, incoherent and illogical”.
“These justifications appear completely illogical to us, only fitting into a virtual reality, with no correspondence to the reality of life. Analysing the statements and the evidence produced, the defendant sought to normalise and whitewash the sums received,” she said, summing up that “the defendant’s actions in office and the creation of financial structures prove the existence of a corruptive pact between Manuel Pinho and Ricardo Salgado.”
Manuel Pinho, who has been under house arrest since December 2021, was accused of passive corruption for an illegal act, passive corruption, money laundering and tax fraud.
His wife, Alexandra Pinho, was charged with money laundering and tax fraud – in material co-authorship with her husband – while former banker Ricardo Salgado was charged with active corruption for an unlawful act, active corruption and money laundering.
Salgado and Pinho will appeal
Ricardo Salgado’s defence has announced that it will appeal the sentence of six years and three months in prison handed down to the former banker on Thursday, considering that the court condemned “someone who no longer exists” – referring to his Alzheimer’s disease.
“The defence disagrees and considers the decision doubly unfair because it disregards everything that has happened over months in this court and clearly disregards the evidence, so we cannot agree, and we will appeal,” Salgado’s lawyer, Francisco Proença de Carvalho, told reporters.
“Secondly, it’s unfair because it’s punishing someone who no longer exists; more than punishing the defendant, it’s punishing his family, his wife and carer,” the lawyer added.
Speaking outside Lisbon’s Central Criminal Court, where the former chairman of Banco Espírito Santo (BES) was found guilty of active corruption for an illegal act (a four-year sentence), active corruption (three years) and money laundering (three and a half years), resulting in a single sentence of six years and three months, the lawyer considered it “an offence” to see the court say that his client was silent because of Alzheimer’s disease.
“In Portuguese justice, I can’t make any great predictions, but in a democratic justice system that respects human rights, someone who has this disease and will be 80 in three weeks’ time obviously can’t serve time, and the law expressly states that the sentence must be suspended. I don’t want to believe that because this person is called Ricardo Salgado, he will have different rights,” he emphasised.
Francisco Proença de Carvalho also assured that ‘”the defence will go to the last possibilities of judicial appeal” and argued, based on the medical examinations carried out in the meantime, that “there is not the slightest doubt” that Ricardo Salgado suffers from Alzheimer’s.
Manuel Pinho has also confirmed he intends to appeal.
“We will appeal because the verdict has nothing to do with what happened in court. (…) We had a strategy for this trial, first for it to be quick and then a strong emphasis on transparency,” said the former minister, adding that journalists were “fundamental because they reported everything that happened here in a precise, honest, and faithful manner.”
Pinho believes that the only reason he was condemned was “to avoid an earthquake in the justice system.”
“I have been under investigation for 12 years, I have been under house arrest for two and a half years, and if I didn’t leave here with a conviction, the mere 2% of Portuguese who have some faith in justice would drop to 0%,” he said.
“So I don’t even ask you whether these judges decided based on the truth or to avoid an earthquake. (…) Today we inaugurated a new situation here, which is judges making a decision ignoring what the witnesses said. (…) There wasn’t a single witness who supported the prosecution’s thesis, so it was a victory of 120 to zero, and this court made a decision based on convictions,” Pinho insisted.
On a closing note, the former minister said he has the “total awareness” that he committed no crime, and that “after the appeals and with time, it will be concluded” that he is innocent.
Source: LUSA
