Lalanda e Castro, until recently the head of Octapharma and accused of corruption in a plasma supply monopoly to Portugal's health service, has been released by a German judge.
His lawyer says the ex-director of Octapharma, arrested a week ago in Germany, will be in Portugal whenever he is needed and hence there was no reason to keep him in detention prior to his deportation.
Lalanda e Castro was released after a German judge ruled that there were no grounds for the European Arrest Warrant and the defendant is always in contact with the Portuguese authorities as he also is under investigation in the Operation Marquês money laundering and corruption case.
The bizarre logic that Lalanda e Castro is already in deep trouble, so should be released from custody, is one that already has many lawyers scratching their heads.
Lawyer, Ricardo Sá Fernandes, who visited Lalanda e Castro in a German jail on Tuesday in the presence of German lawyers, has informed the Public Prosecutor's Office that his client will show up “wherever, however and whenever" he is called.
"I am satisfied with the order from the German judge because the arrest was abusive," said Ricardo Sá Fernandes.
Lalanda e Castro was detained last Wednesday at the offices of Octapharma in Heidelberg as part of operation ‘O Negative" which also led to the arrest and detention of Luís Cunha Ribeiro, the former president of the national ambulance service on suspicion of corruption.
Portugal’s police suspect that Luís Cunha Ribeiro has been on the take from the former director of Octapharma in Portugal so that the company got a monopoly to supply Portugal’s hospitals with plasma and blood products.
Lalanda de Castro is also suspected of corruption in the Operation Marquês investigation and has been accused of trafficking in Golden Visas and tax fraud.
Ricardo Sá Fernandes took on Lalanda e Castro as a client only after the businessman’s lawyer Farinha Alves also was arrested and accused in Operation ‘O Negative.’
Sá Fernandes already was Paulo Lalanda e Castro’s lawyer in Operation Marquês and was able to affirm that his client “had always informed the judicial authorities of his whereabouts and had repeatedly expressed his willingness to make statements: hence his detention in Germany was not necessary, nor did it make any sense.”
