António Cotrim / Lusa
He promised but did not comply with the delivery of home invoices in Espinho. Survey of the Lisbon House will also have been locked by the City Council itself. What can PGR discover? Not much.
Luís Montenegro was also president of the PSD when the Attorney General’s Office announced an inquiry into the construction of his house in Espinho in December 2023.
“Good thing the prosecutor opened an inquiry and thankfully the court will take a position on my conduct,” he said at the time.
“I owe nothing to anyone, I fear nothing. If there is an inquiry, All documentation will be delivered when requested. I am available to do so now, ”he said at the press conference promptly.
In December 2024, the case was filed by PGR, but the invoices never arrived – Even after, in July, he received an email requesting the documents to which he had access to him.
This email received a very different response from the one that was given at a press conference: “I had no access to any tax benefit that had not been attributed, exactly in terms of any other citizen, directly by law and/or applicable regulations and always by intervention and/or decision of competent authorities, IE, IE, City Hall of Espinho and Tax Authority“.
“Although there is much of the documentation that supports the previous statement, No one better than these entities can provide you with And explain, ”concluded the Prime Minister.
It is true that the Câmara de Espinho provided the documentation related to ARU (urban rehabilitation area), but the invoices never arrived at the prosecutorand only referred to by witness Diogo Lacerda, the architect of the house.
The lack of documentation did not prevent the Public Prosecution Service from writing an order that dismissed illegalities.
“The invoices related to the construction works prior to the publication of ARU and the City Council certificate attesting to the inclusion of the work in the perimeter and in its effects, as well as the communication to the finances of such facts, were processed and settled at a rate of 23%, and the subsequent ones processed and settled at the rate of 6%,” was read in the document.
This Friday, Luís Montenegrdenied it that it did not deliver the invoices. “I know there are attempts to reissue old and reheated news. I am very comfortable very quiet, always fulfilled my obligations and also responded to the requests made to me, ”said, quoted by Lusa.
“I delivered all the documentation that was asked, it’s not worth going to misrepresent things.”
Luís Montenegro has also been questioned if he is concerned that the former socialist prosecutor to the European Attorney’s Office about Spinumviva, replied that he is not aware of this complaint and added that he has no reason for concern.
Already questioned if he agrees with PS secretary general, Pedro Nuno Santos, when he says that in the next legislatures, confidence in the leaders of the two largest parties will be at stake, The Prime Minister replied, “Surely yes.”
“For government leadership, two political projects, the political project of the PS and the political project of the Democratic Alliance (AD), and two political leaders, the PS leader and the AD leader will be concerned.
Preventive investigation only accesses public data
It was the Attorney General of the Republic, Amadeu Guerra, who on the way out of the Supreme Court reported the decision of the PGR to open a preventive inquiries instead of a criminal inquiry.
The investigation, resulting from 3 anonymous complaints, investigates the legality of the company Spinumviva, which Montenegro passed to his wife and then to his children.
The problem is that there is a lot of difference between preventive inquiries and a crime inquiry, in what access to data It concerns. In the case chosen by the Attorney General of the Republic, the investigation is limited to public data, further news from.
As with A, PGR will not have access, for example, to bank accounts of the Prime Minister’s family.
PGR can therefore only have access to data to which anyone can access, such as commercial records, which will make difficult to find out more than it is now known about the company. Otherwise, a search on Google would be enough to learn more.
To the Express, PGR was justified with a 1994 law, which allows the MP to open “prevention actions”. However, the law changed in 2017, and it is under Law 83/2017 that the investigation should proceed.
This law allows DCIAP (Central Department of Research and Criminal Action) AGREE “DIRECTLY and by order, the All financial informationsupervisor, administrative, judicial and police, necessary for the preventive investigation procedures underlying the laundering of capital and the financing of terrorism. ”
In the case of the former Prime Minister António Costa, when he was investigated on Operation Influencer, it was under a crime inquiry.
Jubilated Assistant Attorney General Maria José Fernandes says that “perhaps if he had justified in the case of the former Prime Minister also a preventive investigation and not a crime inquiry, at least given what was known at the time.”
Chamber of Lisbon Locks Survey The House
According to this Friday, the Lisbon City Council will have Locked a survey by the Municipal Police The works that are being carried out by the Prime Minister, which consist of two apartments T1 in an apartment T2 duplex, which implies an intervention in the building’s own structure.
According to Lisbon Chambercontacted by the newspaper itself, the blockade to the survey is false. The municipality “treats all the same” and “all works are susceptible, at all times, to be the target of inspection/inspection by the competent services of the municipality”, says the CM.
The municipality also confirms that it received the communication of works, but does not specify the date it received it.
