Operation Influencer may not have ‘influenced’ lithium and hydrogen business dealings…
With the country going to the polls on Sunday because of a corruption probe that saw the prime minister throw in the sponge, reports today suggest “some facts” mooted may not constitute crimes at all.
In the hurly burly of today’s ‘last minute campaigning’ – with PS Socialists exhorting voters to throw their weight behind the party, and “not waste” their vote on other parties of the left – very little is being said about the doubts now swirling.
When Influencer first broke onto the scene, hopes were that suspicions would be clarified “before the elections”. This hasn’t happened: the PS is still technically under ‘a cloud of suspicion of corruption’. But, as commentators have pointed out, this campaign has barely mentioned Influencer, or indeed the corruption scandal that has since brought down the PSD regional government in Madeira.
Today, Visão magazine (repeated by multiple sources) reports that public prosecutor João Paulo Centeno admits that in the cases of lithium and hydrogen (part of Influencer’s original brief) “there are still doubts that have to be investigated”.
In a dispatch published by Visão, João Paulo Centeno – who leads the team of three public prosecutors in charge of the case – argues that if influencer was kept ‘intact’, these doubts could be “prejudicial to the realisation of justice”.
To be fair, none of this can come as a surprise: the case has already seen a judge of criminal instruction say much the same, and release defendants for whom public prosecutors had requested preventive custody.
What today’s news seems to be saying is that there are “strong indications” of incriminatory evidence when it comes to the investigations into the Sines Data Center/ Start Campus side of Influencer, but nothing like as much evidence in other areas.
The lithium/ hydrogen aspects of the probe involve former government ministers João Galamba, João Matos Fernandes and Duarte Cordeiro. Galamba and Matos Fernandes are no longer in government, and Duarte Cordeiro has already announced he is not standing for parliament in Sunday’s elections.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
