Nine corruption investigations sparked by revelations in the online Football Leaks dossier are being compromised thanks to Portugal’s insistence that the principal whistleblower, Rui Pinto, should be held in preventive custody.
This was the claim made earlier this week by former MEP Ana Gomes – the country’s Joan of Arc when it comes to denouncing ‘inconvenient’ signs of institutional corruption.
Gomes suggests Justice Minister Francisca Van Dunem has agreed that French investigators can question Pinto on material published online that is pertinent to France, but she has not explained why allegations relating to Portugal have been ignored.
“Many times, and in writing, Rui Pinto has shown interest in collaborating with Portuguese justice”, Gomes told a press conference in Lisbon. “But the authorities simply want to be against him, or they want him to give them further information with which to incriminate himself”.
Portugal is a country where 94% of all corruption cases end up being archived, Gomes told a press conference supported by French magistrate Eva Joly and Delphine Halgand-Mishra, executive director of The Signals Network, the NGO that provides legal protection to whistleblowers.
Joly went further: “We are faced with a shocking situation in Portugal”, she said. “They have rejected proof against high-ranking personalities and placed the person who obtained that proof in prison. It’s a situation that makes no sense”
Hagland-Mishra claims Portugal is “a bad example” when it comes to tackling allegations of corruption, but vowed that “what Portugal doesn’t want to do, other countries will”.
She stressed that elsewhere tax authorities have recovered 35 million in lost revenue thanks to Football Leaks.
Pinto, 30, has been incarcerated for the last four months. Gomes is piling on the pressure to see him released, pending trial – and there is the possibility that this could happen ‘by September’
He has been accused of six crimes: two of illegitimate access, two of violation of secrecy, one of offence to a collective person and one of attempted extortion.
Pinto has said throughout that all he was ever trying to do was expose the rot at the heart of international football (click here).
