The long-running investigation into qualified tax fraud, corruption and money laundering, involving 31 defendants, nine companies and 22 individuals, should be finished a month before the deadline meaning that charges finally will be announced in October.
José Sócrates, (pictured), the prime suspect in an alleged web of illicit transactions, dubious commissions, tax evasion, offshore accounts, cash payments and corruption, will soon know the details of what he is being charged.
The Operation Marquês indictments, currently being finalized, run to more than 4,000 pages as, after nearly three years, the investigation mounted by the Public Prosecutor's Office is concluded.
The charges will be announced well before the deadline of November 20th by the Attorney General, Joana Marques Vidal, as prosecutors finally received a reply to their last letter rogatory on August 22nd.
According to the newspaper Correio da Manhã, prosecutor Rosário Teixeira has decided to drop some lines of investigation but there is enough well researched detail to charge all of those indicted.
José Sócrates claims he is innocent of all charges, not that he has seen them yet, and for two years his lawyers have claimed the process ‘illegal’ as the normal one year investigation period has been exceeded.
It is hoped that the operation and forthcoming trials represent a watershed in Portugal’s efforts to clamp down on high level corruption involving a business and political elite whose assumptions of state-sponsored immunity already have been dashed.
