Former Prime Minister José Sócrates sent a letter this Friday to the Attorney General of the Republic, Lucília Gago, complaining about the Public Ministry and Caixa Geral de Depósitos (CGD).
“The Public Ministry seems to have lost any sense of decency.” So begins Sócrates’ missive sent following a news report by SIC that revealed that José Sócrates was investigated after the indictment in Operation Marquês due to large transfers.
According to SIC, from 2020, in his Caixa Geral de Depósitos account, the former government official will have received 12,500 euros per month following a consultancy contract with Adélio Machado, a businessman and former car driver who has already gone bankrupt. in France and Spain.
Sócrates says that the letter should be considered a formal complaint “against unknown persons who, in the Public Prosecution Service”, disclosed their contract and the news of an investigation. “I am well aware that the penal authorities seem to consider the crime of violating the secrecy of justice as a state monopoly. An institutional crime, so to speak. But it turns out it’s still a crime. And that it is used against people that the Public Ministry considers its enemies. Once again, these methods are shameful”, reads the letter in which Sócrates also files a complaint against “those responsible for the Caixa Geral de Depósitos bank for slanderous denunciation”.
The former ruler claims that he informed the bank of all relevant information about the contract and is no longer a “politically exposed person”, in that he stopped exercising public functions about 12 years ago.
For all this, the former Prime Minister José Sócrates asks for the opening of a criminal inquiry. “Attacking me in this way, and attacking everyone who has a social relationship with me, is cowardice and violence that I have known for a long time from the Marquis process. These methods, Madam Prosecutor, are disgusting”, he underlined.
PÚBLICO questioned the PGR about the existence of this alleged investigation and at what stage it is.