The Liberal Initiative wants to hear the son of the president of the republic in parliament

The President of the Liberal Initiative announced this Sunday that he will demand parliamentary hearings on the case of the son of the President of the Republic, Nuno Rebelo de Sousa, and hopes that the PS will not again “block these clarifications”.

In a conversation with Lusa, Ruy Rocha recalled that this week the PS blocked requests for hearings from former governors Marta Temido and Lacerda Sales “in a case that lasted several weeks and in which there were conflicting versions.”

“Taking into account what remains to be clarified and this position of the PS, which does not allow people who may have direct knowledge of the facts to be able to clarify the Portuguese, IL is faced with the need to submit a request to hear Dr. Nuno Rebelo de Souza,” – he said.

Rui Rocha explained that Marcelo’s son Rebelo de Sousa was mentioned as having “some interference in this matter” and that there is even news that he met with the then State Secretary of Health Lacerda Sales.

“In view of the PS blockade, it is necessary to summon Dr. Nuno Rebelo de Sousa to parliament so that he can say whether there is any interference on his part and contribute to clarifying this issue to the Portuguese,” he said.

Asked if he foresaw a new “lead” on this request for a hearing, which would be routine and non-binding, Rui Rocha said he hoped that would not happen.

“If there was an attempt on the part of the PS to stop this again, we would have to interpret it as a difficult to understand interest in blocking the explanations of the Portuguese,” he said.

According to the Rules of Procedure of the Assembly of the Republic, “parliamentary committees may require the participation of any citizen in their work,” however, they can only do this in a mandatory manner in relation to members of the Government, managers, employees and contractors of indirect government and the public business sector, as well as members of bodies of independent administrative entities.

The case involves two twin children living in Brazil, who in the meantime had acquired Portuguese citizenship and came to Portugal in 2019 to receive the drug Zolgensma for spinal muscular atrophy, worth a total of four million euros. November, which condemned the alleged interference of the President of the Republic.

On Monday, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa confirmed that his son contacted him about the situation with the Portuguese-Brazilian twins, who later received the medicine at the Santa Maria Hospital, and stated that the treatment he gave in this case was neutral, as and many others.

The case is being investigated by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) and the Inspectorate General of Medical Activities (IGAS) and is the subject of an internal review at the Santa Maria Hospital.

Speaking to journalists in the Palacio de Belem on Monday, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa presented an account of the correspondence in the Presidency of the Republic regarding this case between October 21 and October 31, 2019, noting that it began with an email in which his son Nuno Rebelo de Souza sent him elements that he said were sent to the Prosecutor General’s Office (PGR).

According to the head of state, “it is obvious that the President of the Portuguese Republic, faced with a citizen’s request, like any other, gives the most neutral order and the same as he gave in ‘n’ cases”, without there being “intervention of the President of the Republic in connection with with the fact that he is a son or not a son.”

Answering a question about his son’s intervention in this matter, the head of state considered that he “wanted to support, wanted to present, sent the case,” said that he did not know whether he contacted anyone from the Ministry of Health and that he assumed that he did not mention anything his name, nor the relationship between them, which would be “completely unacceptable.”