Mário Cruz / Lusa
The former Prime Minister, José Sócrates
Former Prime Minister José Sócrates assured that, in mid-2012, his mother gave her 450,000 euros from the sale of a house, because she knew her son had no income since leaving the government a year earlier.
José Socrates He was Prime Minister of Portugal from March 2005 to June 2011. Then, more than a year and a half was unemployed.
It was to continue his life in Paris with his children and studies that the former ruler received 450,000 euros from the mother.
It was the explanation given by Socrates, on the fifth day of the Judgment of Operation Marquis, to questions the framework of prosecutor Rómulo Mateus about his personal and professional situation between being a prime minister and his duties in the company Octapharma, in February 2013, with an initial monthly compensation of about 12,500 euros.
“When I left the government, the first thing I did was request a loan from Caixa Geral de Depósitos. I asked 150,000 euros to go to Paris and be without working a year,” he began to explain, needing the change, in which the eldest son accompanied him, was intended to attend a master’s degree in political theory.
The money will have given to live “for a year” until “at the end of the 2012 school year”, the mother decided to sell the apartment where she lived in downtown Lisbon and moving to another house she had in Cascais.
According to José Sócrates, the Property was sold for 600,000 euros to Carlos Santos Silva“That was dedicated to this.” Interestingly, the entrepreneur is considered one of the rail of the former governor.
Of this amount, 450,000 euros were, said, delivered by his mother to the former head of government, because he had no income.
“Where did the money come from? My brother had just died and she was angry with my brother’s family“He explained moved at the moment of greater exaltation.
José Sócrates pointed out after it will prove that, In the 1980s, his mother had inherited a fortune of “one million short stories” (five million euros).
Socrates denies having instrumentalized ministers
At this Tuesday’s session, Socrates denied having instrumentalized ministers so that they would perform illegal acts in the TGV contest – one of the dossiers in which he is accused of being corrupted by the Lena group.
“It is absolutely false that I have given suggestions or guidance to ministers to instrumentalize them, to perform acts against their will, illegal acts,” said the head of government between 2005 and 2011.
José Sócrates rejected that he discussed details of the contest at a meeting in October 2009, with the then breaking minister of public works, transport and communications, Mário Linoand with the jury president of the procedure.
According to the former governor, the meeting took place at Mário Lino’s initiative, did not last more than five minutes and the “only comment” he did so was to follow the jurisprudence of the Court of Auditors, “however unfounded” it was.
The socialist also accused the next government, led by Pedro Passos Coelho (PSD), that he ended up with the project, which in 2012 would eventually be failed by the Court of Auditors.
O contest had been won by a consortium of which the Lena Group was partwhich, with the veto, gained the right to compensation of more than 150 million euros, which until today has not been paid.
“It is not asked to analyze the budgetary fit of a project that has taken off from the budget,” said José Sócrates today.
The former prime minister also accused the executive of António Costa (Ps) by “Political cowardice” for deciding, from 2015, not to advance with the TGV“Just because it was the Socrates project”, detained in November 2014.
Socrates accuses STJ of bias
On the way out of the Campus de Justice, Lisbon, the former prime minister was asked about the decision of the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) to.
Under the judgment of Operation Marquis, on July 3, Pedro Delile, Socrates lawyer, had argued that the trial could not go on as this request for refusal, Aiming for Amadeu Guerrawhich accused of intervening in the process through the team of prosecutors appointed to the process, was not decided.
In the decision, known this afternoon, the STJ rejected the request refusal presented by Socrates.
The Supreme “considered that the exercise of the power of appointment of the representative of the Public Prosecution Service in the trial and the respective support team, (…) is in the field of PGR’s gestation competences, so it does not constitute an intervention in the process”.
Speaking to journalists, Socrates accused the STJ of bias In rejecting the request for refusal aimed at statements by the Attorney General-a decision that the former prime minister says “to protect the prosecutor.”
“The Supreme is playing with very serious things. When a prosecutor says what he said, saying that I have to prove my innocence in court, it should be removed from making decisions in the process. I think this is very reasonable, but protect each other”Said José Sócrates.
“Why does the Supreme Court make this decision? Just in order to protect the prosecutor,” he repeated, insisting that the presumption of innocence was concerned.
Amadeu Guerra said in an interview with the Observer in late June that he should “give Socrates the opportunity to prove his innocence.”
“The judicial system should realize that it has to react to this, and does not react. It lets the prosecutor make absolutely amazing statements, saying that an accused now has to prove his innocence in court. I think it goes beyond the limits,” he insisted.
Asked if he considers the partial STJ, José Sócrates said yes and added: “If I think the court is partial, I submit that”.
José Sócrates is the main defendant of Operation Marquis and is accused of 22 crimes, including three passive corruption of political office holder, 13 capital bleaching and six of qualified tax fraud.
The process has, in total, with 21 defendants, which respond globally for 117 economic and financial crimes.
The trial, which began on July 3 at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon, only will continue on September 2with the continuation of interrogation to José Sócrates.
The defendants have generally denied the practice of any illicit.
