Former Socialist Parliament Leader and MEP Francisco Assis, current President of the Economic and Social Council (CES), considered this Sunday that the accusation of Luisa Salgueiro in the “Operação Teia” is a “gross mistake” and asked for the intervention of the Attorney General of the Republic.
In written statements sent to Luz in “the strict state of a Portuguese citizen”, the current president of CES believes that “the decision taken by DIAP [Departamento de Investigação e Ação Penal] regarding Dr. Luisa Salgueiro making her a defendant for a legally unsound reason is based on a mistake so gross that it cannot be easily ignored.”
“Attorney General of the Republic [Lucília Gago] is obliged to make a decision in this strange case as soon as possible. We are facing a major attack on the functioning of the rule of law system by the State Attorney,” reads a message sent to Luce.
According to Francisco Assis, “the principle of the separation of powers has been misused to protect the behavior of certain members of the judiciary, who are accustomed to act with an unacceptable sense of impunity.”
“In this particular case, the error is so egregious that it requires, as I mentioned above, the immediate position of the Attorney General of the Republic,” the report says.
A statement sent on Saturday by the Chamber of Matosinhos, headed by Luisa Salgueiro, who is also president of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP), confirms that the mayor was appointed by argument in the “Operação Teia” case on 24 October. .
“Luisa Salgueiro believes that this whole issue will be quickly cleared up without canceling the moral and reputational damage caused during this time,” can be read in a statement sent by the Office of Support to the President of the Chamber of Matosinhos in the district of Porto.
The text emphasizes that “the only fact imputed to Mayor Matosinhos under the Operação Teia process is that she chose her former chief of staff by appointment without opening a public tender.”
“There are no public competitions to select members of city halls. In fact, there are no known cases when the heads of mayoralties were elected through public competitions,” defends autarchy in a text sent to news departments.
“It is also specified that the judicial police conducted a search in the municipality of Matosinhos as part of this process in May 2019 and that at that time and only at that time, Luisa Salgueiro’s mobile phone was seized and the contents of her computer were copied.” , you can say. also read in the text.
Since then, according to Camara de Matosinhos, “no other steps have been taken and Luisa Salgueiro has never been heard in the context of this process.”
On Friday, Sabado magazine reported that Mayor Matosinhos was declared indicted by the State Attorney’s Office (MP) in the “Operação Teia” case, investigated by Porto’s DIAP on suspicion of violating public procurement rules, in dozens of direct adjustments.
According to Saturday, the suspicions “are related to the hiring of Marta Laraña Pontes” to the position of the socialist mayor’s chief of staff, which, according to the deputy, “would have happened due to the personal influence of the main defendants in the process: Joaquim Couto and his then wife Manuela Couto, as well as Laraña Pontes himself, who at the time was said to be close to Luisa Salgueiro.”
On Saturday, PSD/Matosinhos President defended that socialist Luisa Salgueiro should make the position of President of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP) “available” after she was appointed by the argument in the Operação Teia case, but not that President of the Chamber of Matosinhos.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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