The former Socialist government minister, Armando Vara, will go to prison after losing his final appeal at the Constitutional Court in the Face Oculta case for which the trial started back in 2011.
Vara has been charged with influence peddling in the inquiry and subsequent trial, and was sentenced to five years in the jug.
The former socialist minister is the first of those convicted to have reached the end of the legal line. Vara already had lost his appeal to the Constitutional Court, but had tried one last argument, which he also lost.
The Porto Court of Appeal decided more than a year ago to uphold Vara’s conviction to five years in the chokey, as the court did for the majority of the 32 individual defendants who appealed.
Vara can not go to the Supreme Court of Justice as this only looks at cases where the conviction is eight years or more.
This rule does means that Manuel Godinho, the main defendant in Face Oculta, dubbed the ‘Scrapmerchant of Ovar,’ can still appeal to the Supreme Court as he got a 17-year sentence (later reduced to 15 years 10 months) for criminal association, active corruption, traffic of influence, fraud, theft and for abusing the public tendering process.
Armando Vara, a 64-year-old former politician and banker, worked at Caixa Geral de Depósitos and then moved to the vice-presidency of Banco Comercial Português.
The Face Oculta trial began in 2011, following an investigation started in 2009 relating to a network of corruption that had the objective of favouring businesses owned by the scrap-dealer Manuel Godinho in its dealings with the State.
Vara will be allowed out of the clink from time to time to attend court in the wide-ranging Operation Marquês case. Vara is accused of receiving kick-backs relating to the financing of Vale de Lobo when he was a director of Caixa Geral de Depósitos.
Armando Vara
