Lawyer Rui Costa Pereira, assistant in the Football Leaks process, this Thursday called into question the status of whistleblower invoked by Rui Pinto, creator of the platform, in fourth trial sessionwhich takes place at the Lisbon Central Criminal Court.
According to the former member of the PLMJ law firm, who was part of the team led by João Medeiros and who also saw documents published on the ‘Mercado de Benfica’ blog between the end of 2018 and the beginning of 2019, several folders on his computer were accessed and disclosed, but the same did not happen with a folder relating to the company Fidequity, belonging to the businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, the main figure in the Luanda Leaks case.
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“In the contestation [de Rui Pinto] it was stated that the interest was not Benfica but Luanda Leaks, but this is perhaps not consistent. I have a folder on my computer called Fidequity, which contained a lawsuit by Isabel dos Santos against [o jornalista] Rafael Marques and was not accessed”, said Rui Costa Pereira, before the panel of judges.
At the same time, the lawyer – who is now part of the Vieira de Almeida office – refuted the public interest highlighted by the defendant’s defense for the acts committed, recalling the personal information that appeared in the lawyer João Medeiros’ mailbox, also exposed in the Internet.
“Can someone explain to me the public interest in publishing clinical files on João’s son?”, asked Rui Costa Pereira, regarding health information about his son that was in the email of his former colleague at PLMJ, who confirmed this situation in the previous session.
Rui Costa Pereira also directly targeted Rui Pinto because of a publication by the creator of Football Leaks on Twitter, two days ago, before being heard in court, in which the defendant criticized the lawyer for some messages also published on social networks.
“A few hours before coming here, two days ago, the defendant himself made a ‘tweet’. Since coming here yesterday [quarta-feira] is a stream of insults and threats, by the hundreds or thousands”, he revealed, at a moment when Rui Pinto reacted more visibly in the courtroom, moving his head and arms, sometimes as a sign of assent, sometimes in disagreement with the words by Rui Costa Pereira.
The lawyer reiterated the criticism already aired by João Medeiros to the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) about the use of a stolen email in a footnote of a dispute in the EDP’s excessive rents process, highlighting the “biased reference” in this situation and promising Act accordingly.
“From a professional point of view, the result of this intrusion is still felt today. I will not know everything that the MP is doing, but I will take the appropriate measures”, he stressed.
Asked about the personal consequences of disclosing the documents stored on his computer, the assistant in the Football Leaks case highlighted the “feeling of violation” of privacy and the “moments of absolute chaos and panic” experienced in that period.
“We went from ‘bestial to beasts’ from one day to the next. At a given step, I felt that we started to be seen almost as lepers, in which people didn’t even come close to us”, said the jurist, adding: “The first words comfort did not even come from PLMJ, they came from other colleagues.
Later, it was the turn of lawyer Inês Almeida Costa, who was also an assistant in the process and who belonged to PLMJ, to make statements, in which she emphasized the demonstration of power in the dissemination of information: “There was no criterion, it was charged. It was a link with thousands of documents. There was no rationale, it was because yes, to show power. It looked like a movie”, he summarized.
The questioning of Inês Almeida Costa continued in the afternoon, followed by the inspector of the Judiciary Police, Miguel Covas Amador.
Rui Pinto, 31, will answer for a total of 90 crimes: 68 of improper access, 14 of violation of correspondence and six of illegitimate access, targeting entities such as Sporting, Doyen, the PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Federation of Football and the Attorney General’s Office, and also for computer sabotage of Sporting’s SAD and for extortion, as attempted.
That last crime concerns Doyen and also led to the indictment of lawyer Aníbal Pinto, then representative of Rui Pinto.
The creator of Football Leaks has been free since August 7, “due to his collaboration” with the Judiciary Police (PJ) and his “critical sense”, but is, for security reasons, included in the witnesses in an undisclosed location and under police protection.
