According to lawyer Francisco Proenza de Carvalho, Ricardo Salgado’s hearing in court this Friday in the EDP trial lasted five minutes.
“A person under these conditions does not have the right to a fair and equitable trial because he cannot defend himself and explain himself,” he said regarding the former banker’s Alzheimer’s disease. A medical examination showed that Ricardo Salgado could be questioned, but Francisco Proenza de Carvalho claimed that the former banker “was called and did not know why he came.”
Ricardo Salgado is being tried in the EDP case for active corruption for an illegal act, active corruption and money laundering, in a process in which former Economy Minister Manuel Piño is also accused (passive corruption for an illegal act, passive corruption, money laundering and tax fraud) and his wife Alexandra Pinho (“money laundering and tax fraud”, co-authored with her husband).
“We came here for five minutes of bureaucracy,” noted Francisco Proenza de Carvalho. According to the lawyer, “the dignity of Portuguese justice is at stake.”
The former banker arrived in the courtroom at 10:15 a.m., minutes after walking through the front door of Lisbon’s Central Criminal Court, visibly weakened and accompanied by his wife Maria Joao Salgado and two lawyers, Francisco Proenca de Carvalho and Adriano Squilacce.
Hearing
After some uncertainty as to where the former banker and his wife might sit because Salgado admitted he had lost his hearing and was hard of hearing, the court moved to formally identify the defendant. The presiding judge asked his name, parents’ names, date of birth, marital status and place of residence – questions that Ricardo Salgado was able to answer.
However, when asked about his residential address, he expressed the first restriction: “I have to ask my wife.”
As for what he did in life, the former BES president was able to indicate that he was a banker. “Always,” he added, before once again demonstrating the difficulty of demonstrating that he knew the facts of the case that brought him to court today: “I can’t explain it anymore.”
Ricardo Salgado then recognized and recognized the former Minister of Economy, Manuel Piño, also present in the courtroom, and it was then that the judge tried to confirm that they worked together at BES, and where he also met the wife of the former governor, as well as the accused Alexandra Pinho, whom was eventually interrupted by Salgado’s defense.
President Judge Ana Paula Rosa said that she had not even asked questions yet and that she was only at the identification stage.
He then asked Ricardo Salgado only if he knew that the trial had already begun some time ago and would he allow it to continue in his absence, to which the former banker agreed.