Socrates surrounded by all sides
The Public Prosecution Service should try to postpone the beginning of the trial of the main proceedings of Operation Marquis, which is scheduled for July 3. The objective is to give time to comply with all the necessary formalisms that can be together and judged together the process related to the three crimes of capital laundering by which this week was pronounced José Sócrates and businessman Carlos Santos Silva.
According to Sol_apuro, this is the strongest hypothesis on the table and being analyzed by the group of prosecutors who accompany the Marquis case, after Wednesday’s decision of the Central Court of Criminal Instruction (TCIC)-that, along with the bleaching crimes, determined precisely the combination of these records to the main proceedings. Even if José Sócrates’s defense appeals, as the lawyer has already announced, the judge may admit the appeal but without suspensive effect – that is, the process goes to trial.
Gather what has been separated
15 days from the date scheduled for the beginning of the trial of the main proceedings, the judge who will preside over, Susana Santos Seca, should, however, receive the records regarding bleaching crimes and make a decision on the need for postponement.
On Wednesday’s pronunciation of TCIC_é, on the other hand, one of the several orders that have already been opposed to that of 2021 of Ivo Rosa-which globally filed the prosecutors and cut in several strips the little left. In particular, he created autonomous processes against former bankers Ricardo Salgado and Armando Vara and this against Socrates and Carlos Santos Silva.
The Public Prosecution Service has contested and has always been winning in the higher courts. In the middle, even the defense of Socrates argued several times in terms of law in the same sense as the MP. The intended effects are that they have always been different. This week’s order does not only reaffirm the evidence of the prosecution of the MP but also to recognize the interconnection of the facts that Ivo Rosa, currently judge in the list of Lisbon, did not see in 2021.
In the winding course of this case, some facts and crimes are lost by the Prescription Law. For example, when Ivo Rosa issued the order and created this process against Socrates and Santos Silva, he commented them on the co-authorship of six crimes: three capital whites and three document forgery. These counterfeiting crimes have already prescribed – and concern Paris’s famous house at Avenue Presidentity Wilson, in one of the most expensive neighborhoods of the French capital. It was here that Socrates, their relatives and relatives of friends resided for long periods. A house that was purchased, renewed and furnished following its orders, as described in the prosecution, but was always in the name of Carlos Santos Silva, who forged a lease when both realized that justice could walk after it.
Hypothesis 2: separate judgment
If the MP’s claims are not met and the bleaching crimes are not together in time for the beginning of the main proceedings judgment, and if all Socrates’ appeals are rejected by the courts superior to the similarity of all others, they will still be tried. «As it is a smaller process, it could even have a faster outcome than the main process»tells the sunrise a judicial source of the case.
These bleaching crimes refer to the circulation between 2011 and 2014, of illicit money that, before reaching the sphere of José Sócrates, usually in cash, was going through four bank accounts: one of the company controlled by Carlos Santos Silva, two of his wife and, finally, the then driver of the former prime minister, João Pen. Instruction Judge Sofia Marinho Pires has no doubt that «It is indicted that the maneuvers used by defendants Carlos Santos Silva and José Sócrates described in the accusation» aimed to hide and conceal « The true origin of the monetary amounts that came to the sphere of defendant José Sócrates, being a means to introduce into the national banking system the funds that has entered the country through the repatriation of the money in Switzerland. ».
Following the prosecution of the MP, the TCIC judge crosses the financial analysis carried out by the Tax Authority with the listening of the process to, through these accounts, count the number of cash deliveries that reached the hands of José Sócrates and other paid to third parties by « support » to the intellectual production provided to the former prime minister. One example is the money that came out of Santos Silva’s company for the massive acquisition of copies of the book Confidence in the world whose intention was to catapult it to the tops of sales, and to pay a bound to Professor Domingos Farinho, the presumed Ghost Writer of the work. Regarding the production of the book, the judge of TCIC does «Whose authorship is attributed to José Sócrates».
The bleaching crimes concerned, contrary to what defendants’ defense has stated, do not prescribe before 2035.
