Former Banco Espirito Santo Angola (BESA) President Alvaro Sobrinho, former Grupo Espírito Santo Santo (GES) President Ricardo Salgado and three other defendants will find out this Monday whether they will stand trial in the BES Angola case.
The announcement of the investigative decision by investigating judge Gabriela Lacerda Assunção is scheduled for 15:00 at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon.
During the investigative debates held on June 3, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), through the voices of prosecutors Rita Madeira and Sandra Oliveira, demanded that the five defendants be tried “according to the exact charges.”
The cases include former Angolan banker Alvaro Sobrinho, who is charged with 18 counts of breach of trust and five counts of money laundering, and former GES president Ricardo Salgado, who is charged with five counts of breach of trust and one count of fraud.
A former Angolan banker is suspected of embezzling hundreds of millions of euros in a case that took place between 2007 and July 2014.
Also at stake are former administrators Amilcar Morais Pires, accused of breach of trust and fraud, Helder Batalha, accused of breach of trust, and Rui Silveira, who is only responsible for fraud.
On the other hand, the defence of the defendants in the BESA case, during the preliminary arguments, contested the MP’s thesis and considered that the court should not hold them liable. The lawyers pointed to the alleged lack of territorial jurisdiction of the Portuguese courts to rule on the facts of the case, but they also criticised the MP’s accusation, claiming that it was unfair or based on contradictions, conjectures and inferences.
The BESA indictment was announced in July 2022 and concerns the provision of BES funding to BESA in the form of interbank money market (MMI) credit lines and bank overdrafts. As a result of this criminal activity, BES was exposed to BESA on 31 July 2014 to a risk of approximately €4.8 billion.
According to the indictment, the benefits obtained from the commission of the crimes charged in this investigation amount to global amounts of 5,048,178,856.09 euros and 210,263,978.84 US dollars.
According to the DCIAP, in addition to “the amounts unlawfully debited from BESA accounts registered with BES in Lisbon to corporate entities acting in his personal interests, Álvaro Sobrinho also used the liquidity available in these two banks on several occasions to cover the payment of expenses for the purchase of goods and for the direct financing of the activities of other companies belonging to them.”
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
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