António Guterres, former prime minister of Portugal, and Fernando Gomes, a former mayor of Oporto, today dropped in on José Sócrates, detained in Évora jail.
Gueterres told reporters, "I found him very well."
This brief comment was in stark contrast to the barrage of sharply worded letters that the former prime minister José Sócrates has been sending to national newspapers, many blaming the press for his current predicament.
José Sócrates denies that his home computer had been wiped clean to remove incriminating evidence the day before he was arrested at Lisbon airport. He also denies that he had a flight to Brazil booked for the day after he was unexpectedly sent to Évora nick.
A legal move to have him allowed home under house arrest has failed but another is planned while the discomfort of his detention hits home.
Whiling away the hours by sending letters to editors seems not to have calmed Sócrates' mood as he now is blaming cowardly politicians, the press and the legal profession for his detention.
Still, he now has a TV to watch, donated by one visitor and his letters are exiting the premises with the endless stream of ‘friends,’ many of whom claim that Sócrates is of course as innocent as a new born baby, is a stand up sort of guy and his detention is quite inappropriate under the circumstances.
Further news that no doubt will further enrage the jailed politician is that he and his friend Carlos Santos Silva, both currently jailed pending charges and probable trial, financed part of António Costa’s campaign to become the new Socialist party’s general secretary.
According to the online site of Visão, the former Prime Minister and his friend made donations totaling €12,000 towards the campaign costs of the now general secretary of the Socialist Party, through a PayPal account.
Visão stated today that the ‘prosecutor is trying to determine the origin of these and other cash movements of the two defendants."
Perhaps more interesting is the cash payment of €3 million made in the purchase of the apartment in Paris where Sócrates moved to when he left Portugal.