PS MP and former Finance Minister Fernando Medina has been named as a defendant in the “Tutti Frutti” case, which he announced this Monday, on suspicion of malfeasance while he was president of the Lisbon City Council.
“In recent days, I have learned from a message from the Assembly of the Republic that the Public Prosecutor’s Office is requesting that I be heard as an accused in the investigation known as the Tutti Frutti process,” reads a press release issued by Fernando Medina.
The former president of the Lisbon City Council stresses that, according to a report from the Public Prosecutor’s Office to the Assembly of the Republic, he is suspected of “committing an alleged malfeasance”.
“This is about the alleged misappropriation by me, as Mayor of the City Council of Lisbon, on March 23, 2017, of financial support of two hundred thousand euros, to be provided over two years, to the XV Association of Amigos do Rugby de Belém, within the framework of support for sports associations,” explains Fernando Medina.
The current PS deputy stated that he “was perplexed to see that the prosecutor’s reasoning was based on a gross and inexplicable error,” denying any illegality, and stressed that, despite the fact that more than seven years have passed since the start of the investigation and having expressed a willingness to testify, “the prosecutor’s office never once considered it appropriate” to hear him.
“Do it now, like this,” he laments.
The operation, dubbed “Tutti Frutti”, has been investigating since 2018 the alleged favouritism of PS and SDP activists through agreements and public contracts, including suspicions of passive corruption, influence peddling, economic involvement in business and prohibited financing.