On Monday, the head of state confirmed that the prosecutor’s office considers secret the documentation of the President of the Republic in the case of Portuguese-Brazilian twins who were administered the drug Zolgensma in Portugal.
“The prosecutor’s office sent a letter saying that the documents are part of a process that is in judicial secrecy. That’s what it says,” he said.
Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa spoke to reporters outside the Portuguese Institute of Oncology (IPO) in Porto after the opening of a facility to support people with advanced illnesses, located in the Palliative Care Service.
Responding to the question that the report of the General Inspectorate of Medical Activities (IGAS) on the case of the twins stated that the President of the Republic did not first send the documentation requested by this body, the head of state repeated, before the insistence of journalists that the understanding of the prosecutor’s office “is recorded “
On Friday, confronted by journalists outside the National Palace of Ajuda in Lisbon, after the swearing in of the 41 secretaries of state of the XXIV Constitutional Government led by Luis Montenegro, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa had already explained that “the Ministry of State considered it to be a judicial secret”, and for this reason it was not sent to TVI or IGAS, which requested it.
“The prosecutor’s office understood that this is a judicial secret,” he clarified then.
“The President of the Republic considered it appropriate to verify whether there was a violation of judicial secrecy. The Commission on Access to Administrative Documents (CADA) understood that there was no breach of judicial secrecy, that there were reasons justifying disclosure. [A documentação] was released in January [tanto à TVI]”, he added.
Marcelo Rebelo de Souza also confirmed that he never spoke to his son Nuno Rebelo de Souza about the case again. “Well, exactly, if this is under investigation, I realized that I shouldn’t say,” he explained.
Then, when asked whether his son had used his name to petition for the drug to be prescribed to the Portuguese-Brazilian twins, he sent an explanation of his behavior to Nuno Rebelo de Souza himself: “You will have to ask him yourself, he is 51 years old, older and vaccinated, lives in another state.”
According to the newspaper Expresso, in a report on the case, IGAS believes that the President of the Republic “conditioned the direction of the investigation” by refusing to first send the requested documentation, saying that it was in judicial secret.
According to Expresso, this point “deserves an entire chapter” in the report entitled “Conditions of the audit.”
IGAS states that on December 21 last year it requested from the Civil Chamber of the President of the Republic information “regarding the nature and dates of maintaining contacts” in this case with the Hospital University University of Northern Lisbon (CHULN), with which it belongs to the Santa Maria Hospital, demanding ” identify the interlocutor(s) to CHULN and transmit any documentation exchanged in this context.”
“Six days later, Belen informed IGAS that all documentation had been sent to the Ministry of State and was under judicial secrecy. Only on January 23, 2024, after a request from TVI journalists to the Commission on Access to Administrative Documents, which gave a positive conclusion on the sending of documents, IGAS receives what it requested,” Expresso said in a statement.
On December 4 last year, in statements to journalists at the Palácio de Belém auditorium, the President of the Republic confirmed that his son Nuno Rebelo de Sousa contacted him by email in 2019 regarding the case of two Portuguese-Brazilian twins. with spinal muscular atrophy, who received one of the most expensive drugs in the world at the Santa Maria Hospital.
On this occasion, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa reported on the correspondence exchanged in the Presidency of the Republic in response to a letter from his son sent to the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and stated that he gave this case “the most neutral order”, like many others .