Former advisor was unaware of the disclosure of the complaint against Cotrim. “Can we change the subject?”

Inês Bichão states that the publication on Instagram where she made the complaint was made without her knowledge and that the veracity of the complaints will be investigated in court.

The former advisor to the IL parliamentary group said today that the publication about an alleged disseminated without your consentadding that “the veracity of the facts” involving the presidential candidate will be determined in the courts.

In a statement sent today to the Lusa agency, Inês Bichão states that, on Monday, January 12th, “was illicitly disseminated” and without your consent, “content of a private nature, originally shared in a restricted and non-public context”, on the social network Instagram.

“This disclosure is being used in the context of an electoral campaign, against my will, in which I did not and do not have any intervention. The facts in question were reported internally during 2023”, highlights the lawyer and legal consultant.

The former advisor to the Liberal Initiative (IL) parliamentary group adds that “the undue disclosure of private content, the non-consensual exposure” of his name and image, “as well as the threats and attempts at intimidation” to which he has been the target, “constitute legally relevant offenses”.

“I do not intend to fuel this controversybut I will not stop exercising my rights at my own headquarters, where the veracity of the facts will be assessed within the frameworks and with the guarantees that the Rule of Law ensures”, concludes Inês Bichão.

The lawyer and legal consultant also tells Lusa that, at this stage, this statement is the single public position who will take over.

Inês Bichão’s statement comes on the same day that it became known that the former liberal advisor had already told her experience with Cotrim to the authors of the book ‘Metoo, a very public secret’which reports several cases of sexual harassment.

On social media, the authors Júlia Garraio, Maria João Faustino, Rita Santos and Sílvia Roque state that the former advisor told them what happened on June 13, 2024. “A young woman came to one of us and told us how she was going through a difficult phase in her life due to situations of sexual harassment suffered by someone very influential in IL”, wrote the writers, who also expressed their support for Inês Bichão.

The writers also say that the report was anonymous and that they only learned of the complainant’s identity “when her photo appeared in the media” and that their previous complaint proves that the case was not a new invention to undermine Cotrim’s campaign. “The accusation of harassment that was reported It’s not a pre-campaign fabulation. It has been, at least, almost two years since it was made to one of us in confidence”, they say.

“Can we change the subject?”

In reaction to Inês Bichão’s statement, Cotrim continues to state that he was not aware of the internal complaint made in 2023 and guarantees that the advisor had never told him that she felt uncomfortable. “On this topic, everything will be determined in court. I have nothing to hide and I will gladly talk. I want to concentrate on the campaign, which is much more important to me”, he responded to journalists this morning in Gondomar.

“Defending my reputation is important to me, but I also have an obligation to defend this campaign. Can we change the subject?“, he said with irritation, once again stating that the publication of this complaint had political objectives because it distracts him from his campaign which is, in his opinion, “probably the purpose of whoever put this in circulation”.

“I’m not saying it was the person themselves, someone did this and is succeeding. You are being completely instrumentalized to use this case to energize my campaign in the last two days. It doesn’t make sense“, he responded.

The presidential candidate had already said that the accusation of sexual harassment by the former advisor to the Liberal Initiative (IL) parliamentary group was “absolutely and completely false”.

“We were aware of this complaint yesterday [domingo] and it is absolutely and completely false what this lady [ex-assessora da IL] circulated and will obviously be subject of a defamation lawsuit”, Cotrim Figueiredo told journalists on Monday.