Lawyers and journalists will finally get the chance to examine the minutes and case files for one of Portugal’s most controversial legal cases when a ban on judicial secrecy is lifted on Tuesday (July 27).
The Freeport Case involved the alleged fast-track planning permission for one of Europe’s largest retail parks on the boundaries of a European Union and Portuguese protected nature reserve on the River Tejo Estuary.
The case, which stretches back to 2002, the year when the then British-owned factory outlet got planning permission, gained notoriety because it was alleged that the current Prime Minister, José Sócrates, used his influence as Minister of the Environment in the PS António Guterres government to get the development passed.
The Prime Minister has always denied the allegations and his involvement in the case and has never been made a suspect or investigated for alleged abuse of power, active or passive corruption, trafficking of influence or receiving backhanders worth several hundred thousand Euros, as have other suspects.
After the judicial summer holidays in August, the Public Ministry is expected to release its decision to go ahead and formally prosecute the legal suspects or ‘arguidos’ in the case, who could then stand trial as defendants.
The seven suspects include Scottish businessman and consultant Charles Smith, who acted as an intermediary between Portuguese public and authority figures and Freeport Plc executives and is suspected of having passed bribes worth millions from the company to Portuguese figures to ensure the development went ahead.
Another is Manuel Pedro, his associate at the now defunct consultancy Smith & Pedro, Carlos Guerra, former president of the Portuguese Institute for Nature Conservation (Instituto de Conservação da Natureza) and its vice-president, José Manuel Marques, as well as José Dias Inocêncio, former president of Alcochete Câmara, João Cabral, former staff member at Smith & Pedro, and architect Eduardo Capinha.
The Portuguese Judicial Police (PJ) has been chasing the trails of detected bank and offshore deposits worth millions of Euros from an unknown source but linked to Charles Smith and Manuel Pedro.
The two partners allegedly withdrew from their company accounts 945,000 Euros and 936,000 Euros, between 2000 and 2005.
The partners’ bank transactions and transfers were also far in excess of what had been declared to either the British or Portuguese tax authorities.
Between 1999 and 2004, Charles Smith apparently declared an income of around 180,000 Euros, but had transfer statements of around 1.8 million Euros.
In the same period, Manuel Pedro declared income of around 307,000 Euros but closer examination of his various banks accounts revealed a figure of around 1.9 million Euros.
Then in 2002, the year in which Freeport was given planning permission, Charles Smith withdrew 145,000 Euros in bank notes. In total, between 2000 and 2005 he had withdrawn 282,000 Euros in cash. Its final destination is unknown.
It was a similar story with Manuel Pedro who, between 1999 and 2005, allegedly withdrew 210,000 Euros in banknotes.
A Cayman Islands offshore BPN account under the name or architect Capinha Lopes, who was also involved in the Freeport project, saw transfers of seven million Euros. His accounts received a total of 1.7 million Euros from Freeport between 2002 and 2004, yet he only declared 210,000 Euros to the tax authorities.
In a final twist, it emerged on Monday that the Institute of Nature Conservation (ICN), whose former president Carlos Guerra and brother João Guerra had a total of 725,000 Euros from unidentified sources in their bank accounts at various times between 1999 and 2004, had turned down a planning application from Alcochete Câmara for a cemetery on the same site where, months later, planning permission would be granted to Freeport. Chris Graeme
