Socrates says he is "nauseated" by the MP
The Attorney General's interview with Observador led José Sócrates to issue a “brief statement” to contest Amadeu Guerra's criticism of the slow pace of the judicial processing of the Operation Marquês case.
Stating that the case against Sócrates “began in 2013”, was indicted in 2017 and, “to our surprise, and mine, eight years have passed and we still haven’t gotten past this stage”, Amadeu Guerra made a point of criticizing the “general inefficiency” of the judiciary in handling these cases. And he added in an ironic tone: “Eng. José Sócrates always said that he wanted to be tried in this case to prove his innocence. I think we should give Eng. José Sócrates this opportunity to prove his innocence.”
In a statement, the former Prime Minister also resorts to irony to say: “relief for everyone. The State no longer needs to prove the accusations it makes – it is the accused who must prove his innocence”, he states.
“When the Attorney General speaks, we immediately feel the law being written: the burden of proof is now on the citizen, not the State. There is no appeal against the statements made by the Public Prosecutor's Office. It just makes me sick,” he concludes.
It should be remembered that the start of the trial of Operation Marquês is scheduled for July 3rd, at the Campus de Justiça, in Lisbon.
Former Prime Minister José Sócrates is going to trial for 22 crimes, three of which are corruption, six are tax fraud and 13 are money laundering. There are 20 other defendants who will be tried , including Carlos Santos Silva (Sócrates' best friend), Ricardo Salgado (former CEO of BES), Armando Vara (former deputy minister to António Guterres), Zeinal Bava (former CEO of Portugal Telecom) and Henrique Granadeiro (former chairman of Portugal Telecom).
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