There were apparent contradictions between the prosecution of the Public Ministry and the analysis of the ex-leonine IT technician.
The disruption caused by Rui Pinto’s attack on Sporting’s system generated confusion this Wednesday in the Football Leaks trial, with apparent contradictions between the prosecution’s accusation and the analysis of the former computer technician from Leon.
After a morning in which the fragility of the Alvalade club’s internal network was exposed in terms of security of entry into e-mail boxes, a large part of the afternoon was dedicated to the analysis of user access attempts on different days between July 20 and September 30, 2015.
And it was here that the contradictions between the Public Ministry’s interpretation and the reading that David Luís Tojal was carrying out of the “logs” file that he compiled after the attack took place began to emerge.
In fact, the systems administrator said at the hearing that on August 4, 2015, access to the mailboxes of Rui Caeiro, Carlos Vieira or Augusto Inácio, among other elements linked to Sporting, had been obtained, while in the indictment document the same occurrences were identified as “failed” access.
The confusion also extended to the collective of judges, who repeatedly tried to understand from the witness if it was possible to identify when the “crash” of Sporting’s email system occurred.
At the same time, they also questioned whether the criterion used for the analysis effectively meant that the system had stopped responding or whether users were able to access the mailbox, but without checking the emails.
“There is no one better than Microsoft [gestora do servidor] to explain. These are interpretations”, summarized David Luís Tojal, after several hesitations in the analysis of the data. However, there were no doubts previously about the effects of the situation, with the former systems administrator of the Alvalade club cataloging it as “catastrophic”.
In view of David Luís Tojal’s difficulty in explaining some of the records in the file, the former “Leonine” IT technician will be heard again at the next trial session, scheduled for Tuesday.
For the same day, the hearings of other former members of Sporting’s structure are already scheduled, namely the former administrators Alexandre Godinho and Carlos Vieira, and the jurist Sancho Freitas, who was part of the legal department.
For October 14, the presence of witnesses Tiago Fernandes, Paulo Silva, José Laranjeiro, Bruno Cardoso and Augusto Inácio are reserved. Next, on the 15th, the hearings of former president Bruno de Carvalho, as well as Virgílio Lopes, Manuel Fernandes, Rui Caeiro, Soeiro Almeida and Vicente Moura.
Rui Pinto, 31, is responsible for a total of 90 crimes: 68 of improper access, 14 of violation of correspondence, six of illegitimate access, targeting entities such as Sporting, Doyen, the PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Federation of Football (FPF) and the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), and also for computer sabotage of Sporting’s SAD and for extortion, in the attempted form. This last crime concerns Doyen and was what also led to the indictment of lawyer Aníbal Pinto.
The creator of Football Leaks has been free since August 7th, “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.
