by Chris Graeme
chris.graeme@algarveresident.com
A parliamentary motion to question Eurojust President José Luís Lopes da Mota over his alleged interference in the Freeport Case has been blocked by the majority, and governing, PS party.
The decision not to force José Luís Lopes da Mota to face a grilling by a parliamentary select committee was made by the government Socialist Party (PS), despite strong indications that at least two examining magistrates investigating the scandal had been threatened and pressurised into discarding eventual incriminating evidence against the Prime Minister’s alleged involvement in the case.
José Luís Lopes da Mota is the President of Eurojust, a European Union legal arbitration body based in the Netherlands, which has powers to conciliate difficult legal issues between member states.
It had been decided on Tuesday last week by the inspector leading the enquiry into alleged interference in the legal process, Vítor Santos Silva, that there was sufficient evidence of interference in the course of justice to open a disciplinary process against José Luís Lopes da Mota.
Pressure to question the Eurojust President before parliament had been proposed by the right wing CDS-PP party but was thrown out on Tuesday this week in parliament thanks to lobbying from deputies from the Prime Minister José Sócrates’ ruling PS party.
Over the weekend, José Lopes da Mota admitted having mentioned the name of the Minister of Justice, Alberto Costa, over alleged pressuring in a conversation with Freeport judicial investigators.
ABUSE OF POWER
Meanwhile, it was revealed by Portuguese daily newspaper Correio da Manhã over the weekend that José Sócrates’ cousin, Hugo Monteiro had admitted that the Prime Minister knew Scottish businessman Charles Smith, who is a suspect and legal defendant or arguido in the Freeport Case. He has persistently denied knowing the former Smith & Pedro Consultants partner.
“I believe that they had a meeting together,” he also said in an interview with weekend newspaper Expresso.
The Prime Minister has constantly denied that he abused his position as Minister of the Environment in 2002 to receive parcels of money, either for himself or his party, in exchange for fast-tracking planning permission for Freeport on a European Union protected nature reserve on the Tejo estuary near Lisbon.
