The undeniably bizarre Operation Influencer – which brought down the absolute majority government of António Costa (now President of the European Council) – listened in on phone calls involving the former PM 22 times, ‘without the knowledge of the higher courts’.
According to today’s edition of the Diário de Notícias (DN) newspaper, between 24 December 2020 and 24 December 2022 there were contacts between Costa and defendants, João Galamba (Deputy Secretary of State for Energy and Secretary of State for the Environment and Energy), Lacerda Machado (friend and government consultant on various matters, including the privatisation of TAP) and Matos Fernandes (Minister for the Environment and Climate Action).
But because of a number of procedural delays, these contacts only reached the Supreme Court in October, at which point the court ruled that the were essentially inadmissible (because Mr Costa was no longer in office).
The Public Prosecutor’s Office then requested authorisation from the TCIC (central criminal court) to add this evidence to Influencer investigation . and that court also considered ‘jurisdictional power had been exhausted’, given the time that had passed.
Mr Costa was heard ‘as a witness in Influencer by DCIAP prosecutor, Rita Madeira, in May 2024, meaning he faced no charges at that point.
Fast-forward to last week, and the nation heard from the Attorney General’s Office that “there is not, nor has there ever been, any inquiry at standstill”. Team members are examining all documentation subject to analysis, and inquiries are at different stages of investigation, “with some segments already well advanced”. Whether this refers to the segment involving Mr Costa is not clear, as four attempts by the former political leader to consult the case have been refused, on the basis that it is bound by secrecy of Justice.
Influencer was split into three inquiries on the decision of former Attorney General, Lucília Gago: Sines data centre, the lithium mining concessions in Montalegre and Boticas and the hydrogen production plant project in Sines.
Current Attorney General, Amadeu Guerra, stated earlier this month that the case had an appeal pending – unaware that the appeal had already been decided, ruling in favour of the defendants and leaving his office without access to a number of emails seized from lawyers.
Influencer burst onto the scene on November 7, 2023, seeing five people arrested and held in custody for days, including Costa’s then chief of staff, Vítor Escária.
Suspicions centred on alleged criminal activity in the construction of the Sines data centre, in the exploitation of lithium in Montalegre and Boticas (both in the district of Vila Real), and in the production of energy from hydrogen, also in Sines.
In a fairly extraordinary statement to the nation, António Costa explained that far from criminal activity, this was the way governments did business.
Readers should remember that when Influencer dispatched a government with an absolute majority (something that the country has not had since, in spite of repeated elections), a number of well-placed sources suggested the whole thing was more of a coup d’état than a genuine investigation.
Source: LUSA
