The Attorney General’s Office rejects the Civic Front’s request for an examination to confirm Ricardo Salgado’s Alzheimer’s disease.

The Attorney General’s Office (PGR) denied a request by the Civic Front Association for an independent forensic examination to confirm the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease to former banker Ricardo Salgado, saying it was the exclusive competence of the Ministry of Public Administration (MP).

“It is clarified that, as was timely communicated to the Civil Front, the decision to determine (or facilitate) the presentation of the accused for a forensic and forensic medical examination is the exclusive competence of the prosecutor in each criminal case, in compliance with the principles of legality, suitability and necessity,” PGR said in response to Lusa, following Tuesday’s report by “online newspaper Eco” of the rejection.

The Civic Front’s request was sent to PGR late last year asking prosecutors in charge of the various cases in which former banker Ricardo Salgado is accused to request forensic examinations from the courts to determine his “real state of health.” “.

Civic Front argued that the diagnosis was presented as justification in Salgado’s defense requests for charges, including in the process drawn from Operation Marquis, under which the former banker was sentenced to six years in prison.

In the understanding of the association, “such an accusation has never been demonstrated on its own, since it is used, on the one hand, to prevent the prosecution of a citizen involved in numerous cases of major corruption that have been practiced over the years, and on the other hand, to support a campaign to victimize the accused in the eyes of public opinion.”

“In the case under consideration, the question of the need to determine the forensic and forensic medical examination is open to the public, which is being considered on appeal in the Lisbon Court of Appeal,” PGR adds in the response. sent to Lusa.

An appeal to the Lisbon Relation was presented by Ricardo Salgado’s defense at the end of May 2022, a 792-page document asking the former banker’s legal representatives to reverse the trial court’s decision as they understand that a six-year arrest will hasten Salgado’s death.

Lawyers for former banker Francisco Proens de Carvalho and Adriano Schilacce recall his alleged diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease and criticize the trial court’s decision for applying “this effective prison sentence without even ‘expending’ or ‘dedicating’ one word to assess the specific relevance” of the pathology. turning “an absolutely essential question into a ‘not a question'”.

“The decision was made in the appeal decision to omit and not assess the specific legal implications that flow from it for determining the sentence and its stay,” Salgado’s defense says, emphasizing that “simply reading the appeal decision appears to be at least shocking in relation to the application effective imprisonment” and that the waiver of sentencing for Alzheimer’s disease is void.

The lawyers also cite that if the diagnosed illness is known to be unsupported by the facts, “the first instance should have determined that a medical examination was necessary to determine whether the accused now appellant had a subsequent mental anomaly, but not that he did”. In this sense, they point to the violation of a number of articles of the Code of Criminal Procedure and entry into nullity.