The BE coordinator considered this Thursday that only the prime minister and the chairman of the SIRP supervisory board are those who “still have not realized that the actions of the SIS were illegal” and said that there is still no clarification.
“I think that in this country, only Dr. Constanza Urbano de Souza and the Prime Minister have yet to realize that the Security Information Service (SIS) was illegal. SIS didn’t have the authority to act the way it did,” Mariana defended. Mortagua.
The coordinator of Bloco de Esquerda (BE) spoke to journalists in Parliament after meeting with the civil movement that signed the petition against the privatization of TAP.
For Mariana Mortagua, given that the SIS acted illegally, “it is important to know only one of two things: she acted without an order – and the person in charge of this in the SIS should take responsibility and resign – or she acted on orders and a man in government should take responsibility and resign.”
Asked if she was defending the resignation of António Mendons Mendez, if it was the Secretary of State who suggested that Minister of Infrastructure João Galamba contact SIS, the BE coordinator replied that “if a member of the government gave an illegal order that the intelligence agencies acted illegally”, he should resign.
“You must take on this responsibility and resign: this or any other member of the government,” he said.
The BE coordinator argued that this was “before breaking the rule of law” and that “Portugal has an information service, it does not have a secret police that acts outside the law at the behest of the government under any circumstances.”
“This is a serious matter and it is important that the prime minister and the government clarify and not delay the resolution of this issue, which does nothing to clarify what needs to be clarified quickly,” he stressed.
Asked if her PSD Prime Minister’s answers had clarified her, Mariana Mortagua replied in the negative and expressed her regret that “the government is insisting on dragging this case out.”
“I hope that Secretary of State Mendonsa Mendez will be able to provide the missing explanations in the first panel, which he will attend next week, and I hope that this will be the last moment when all the explanations will be given,” he stressed.
Mariana Mortagua stressed that “the country cannot extend this case” and needs “answers and moving on to what matters”, referring to “discussions about how people pay interest on their home loan or how they get the end of the month when supermarket prices go up but wages don’t.”
“I think we should focus on the essentials, get answers that are important to the rule of law, and not drag out a question that needs to be answered immediately,” he said.
When asked why she considers the actions of the SIS illegal, Mariana Mortagua replied that “materials are collected by the Judicial Police (PJ) or the Public Security Police (PSP)”.
“SIS collects information, and if action is needed, PJ or PSP act. By not doing this and acting on its own, it has exceeded its functions, and this is not a minor problem, because the information of the service cannot act like a police force, which they are not,” he said.
“Otherwise, we would have a secret police acting on the orders of the government and without any verification, and I think we all understand that we cannot tolerate what is happening in Portugal,” he added.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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