The defense of former Economy Minister Manuel Pinho on Tuesday criticized the role of the Prosecutor’s Office (MP) in the EDP case, comparing the prosecution to a “dying chicken” that the prosecutor considers a “white swan in flight.”
“This charge is a dying chicken waiting for a fair trial to deal the final blow to it. But the prosecutor looks at this dying chicken and sees a flying white swan. This accusation is a dying chicken, there is no end to it.” take him and we’ll just have to bury him,” lawyer Ricardo Sa Fernandez said in his closing arguments at the ongoing trial at Lisbon’s Central Criminal Court.
A spokesman for Manuel Pinho assured that he has “moral confidence” that the former ruler is “not corrupt,” citing his knowledge and in-depth analysis of the process.
“I know that the ministry, the media and the country are waiting for the conviction of Manuel Pinho, because it is good to have a corrupt person to present to the country,” the lawyer emphasized, adding that “those who attended this trial and listened to almost 120 witnesses, you know, there is nothing left of this.”
Ricardo Sa Fernandes has admitted there is a “problem of corruption in Portugal” and argues it needs to be addressed, but rejected the need to do so for his client.
“We cannot condemn innocent people in the name of this problem. They want to introduce [Manuel Pinho] as a scapegoat for some failures in the fight against corruption,” he said.
Manuel Piño’s lawyer also highlighted corruption in the EDP case as another area of focus, citing another line of inquiry carried out by the deputy as part of the process: “We have a problem of corruption. And in this process we definitely have a case of corruption. We just need to know who was corrupt and corrupt. And in this case it was Odebrecht, and there was a “prince”. This has been proven, there is material evidence in this trial, we just don’t know who the prince is.”
The lawyer also criticized prosecutor Rui Batista for the arguments used in his closing statements the day before, considering that he based all the facts of the case on the lack of explanations other than corruption.
“The prosecutor’s statements follow the argument. The argument he uses for all situations without any exception is that there is no other explanation. He knows there is no evidence for this, so the intellectual line is that there is no other explanation and this fits very well with considerations of circumstantial evidence,” he concluded before the meeting was adjourned for lunch and resumed in the afternoon to continue the arguments.
Manuel Pinho, under house arrest since December 2021, is on trial in the EDP case of passive corruption for an unlawful act, passive corruption, money laundering and tax fraud.
His wife Alexandra Pinho is responsible for money laundering and tax fraud (materially co-authored with her husband), and former BES President Ricardo Salgado is responsible for active corruption for illegal acts, active corruption and money laundering. .