Rodrigo Antunes / LUSA
The Attorney General of the Republic, Amadeu Guerra
The Attorney General of the Republic (PGR), Amadeu Guerra, confessed who agreed to come out of retirement to improve the justice situation in Portugal, “like a fan leaving the stands” to give the tactic.
Amadeu Guerra was the guest on episode 100 of the podcast, from the Bar Association, which featured the collaboration of Expresso and TVI/CNN.
One of the central themes of the program was Operation Influencer, which resulted in the fall of the previous government, led by António Costa, in 2023.
The new PGR admitted that it did not know whether it would write the paragraph of the statement about Operation Influencer that aimed at and led to the downfall of then Prime Minister António Costa, claiming not knowing “the process enough”.
Amadeu Guerra said that he will call the holders of the Operation process to speak to them “eye to eye”, saying that they are processes that cannot stop.
The announcement of Operation Influencer was made through a statement from the PGR, then led by Lucília Gagowhich contained a last paragraph stating that an investigation was underway into Prime Minister António Costa. This case was associated with the fall of António Costa.
“With regard to the political situation, there is a lot that can be said (…) for me I don’t have media time, if the accusation is ready on the eve of elections the accusation will come out, I don’t think we can delay it any longer”, he defended.
In what was his first interview since taking office in October, the PGR said that the Public Ministry “has more to worry about than political situations”, referring to being “defender of the separation of powers”.
“Our activity is very simple: investigate without looking at whocitizens are all equal”, he reiterated.
For Amadeu Guerra, the bottom line is: “Were steps taken to collect evidence and let’s let the evidence be analyzed (…), these are big processes that cannot stop.”
On the other hand, the PGR also admitted that the MP “must always be prepared to do justice and if there are no elements to take the case to trial, if there are no elements to accuse and take to trial it will be [um] greater error” to bring charges under these circumstances.
As quoted by , Amadeu Guerra admitted that he agreed to come out of retirement to improve the situation of Justice in Portugal, comparing the opportunity to a football game: “It was like someone who went to watch a football game, the team wasn’t playing at all — or at least the coach thought he wasn’t playing at all. They went to pick him up so he could play“.
Noting that “things take time and are complex”, the new PGR promised: “We are going to change a lot of things”reiterating the mission of talking to prosecutors “eye to eye”.
