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Golden Visa verdicts - nobody goes to jail

macedoJudges in the Golden Visa trial, where 21 defendants were variously accused of corruption and using Portugal’s tax incentive scheme to line their own pockets, were at pains to point out that they had come to their decision without any pressure whatsoever from anyone.

This extraordinary statement, rather like a dinner guest informing the host that he is not going to steal the silverware, raises suspicions that verdicts in other cases have been subject to external influence.

The public ministry had hoped that former minister Miguel Macedo (pictured above), Jarmela Palos, António Figueiredo and businessman Jaime Gomes would receive jail sentences but accepted that these would probably be suspended.

As it turned out, with the verdicts given on Friday, Macedo was acquitted, as was the former director of the SEF, Jarmela Palos, with the judge stating that, "there was no agreement with Jarmela Palos to accelerate the granting of gold visas."

António Figueiredo, the former president of the Registry and Notary Institute, was given four years and seven months, suspended, having spent a year in preventive custody and several months under house arrest.

Maria Antónia Anes, a former secretary general of the Ministry of Justice was facing corruption charges and received a suspended sentence.

As for the dastardly foreigners involved in this case, Chinese defendants received fines, an Angolan businessman, Eliseu Bumba, was found not guilty on all charges and, a name that keeps cropping up when high-level corruption is mentioned, Paulo Lalanda e Costa, formerly heading the drug company Octapharma, was exonerated.

The mammoth trial, that started in February, 2017, lasted for 73 sessions with the intention of the public ministry to bring to account those it accused of being part of a web of corruption that variously fast-tracked Golden Visas, were involved in property deals with qualifying applicants and were party to widespread peddling of influence.

Judge Fernando Henriques said that the decisions were arrived at without external pressure and that Portuguese justice "did not do favours for anyone."

Thoughts now turn to Operation Marquês and the forthcoming trial involving José Sócrates and his not so merry band of co-defendants. Will the public ministry again fail to nail those it is convinced lie at the heart of corruption in the body politic and in the grubby world of old-style Portuguese business practices.

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Comments  

+1 #10 Ollie 2019-01-08 10:06
John sturridge's comments are only his opinion... they fortunately do not represent the facts of every day life in Portugal, otherwise I for one, would choose not to live here.
+1 #9 Darcy 2019-01-08 09:45
Richard p,
What i find interesting in the j stutrigges of this world, is that he likes to use derogatory language about Portugal, the country that he chooses to live, and by the way he is free to leave if he wishes to do so.
But he won't go back to his own country because I suspect that Portugal and the EU give him better prospects than he would get in his country of origin.
+2 #8 RichardP 2019-01-07 13:42
I welcome open discussion and think that Mr Sturridge makes valid points regarding the corrupt police, politicians and judiciary that exists here, hardly a secret to the Portuguese who are happy to discuss national issues. It may be enlightening to many British readers who from my years of observation don't learn Portuguese, don't mix with Portuguese much more than a boa tarde to a waiter and are more interested in the specials at Iceland than the political landscape affecting locals. By the way, I can't let the UK down with my bad manners because I'm not British.
-5 #7 Denby 2019-01-06 23:02
John studrigge,
You really should mind your manners, you (being a British citizen, I presume) represent our country when you are abroad.
Your rude and obnoxious comments serve no cause except to highlight that you have let down your country down, by showing to all that your knowledge of Portugal and it's people, is to say the least, lacking in good taste and at worst is insulting to people who read the ADN.
+3 #6 John Sturridge 2019-01-06 08:29
What better way to unravel Europe ? Yet again this shows the world that Europe is a very mixed bag of evolved, evolving, static and retarded countries with Portugal keen to keep its place as most backward. Organised crime is so embedded here that all the alleged professionals and functionaries; the accountants, lawyers, estate agents, town planners all collude to do the bent fidalgo's orders - safe in the knowledge that he / she will cover for them. Then, when the whistle is blown elsewhere in Europe; yet more collusion from the police and judiciary looking after friends and family. Many of us have experienced this ourselves.
So the former happy to look away in the wrong direction and the latter cleaning out anything brought to them that is at all risky. So no Portuguese goes to jail, the Chinese get fined. Twice ! Once on arrival, again on departure.
+6 #5 John Sturridge 2019-01-05 13:57
Portugal's Golden Visa programme has only ever been about allowing dodgies into the EU. These Chinese only surfaced when attempting to get into one of the A List / Premier League EU. Note also how little has changed since judgements in Salazar's Day's. Then judges already knew the outcome and how they would reach it; nowadays there is some obfuscation from other EU states specifying what the Portuguese Public Prosecutor must charge the miscreants for. These Golden Visa judges signalling that they had spent many hundreds of hours stripping out as inadmissable any evidence that pointed towards the accused. Ex.PM Socrates, when his case comes to trial, now only being charged for parking on a yellow line and having an unlicensed dog. Already we know that no one was identified driving Socrates car that day and the dog is now dead and buried. Hopefully dead before being buried; the alternative being a traditional Portuguese way of dealing with witnesses.
-2 #4 Darcy 2019-01-05 10:22
Golden visa scheme operate in most countries. In the city of London for instance if you are an overseas property speculator and spend over 5 million on a property deal you could be offered a British passport. Hence the number of Russian oligarchs who now have access to EU citizenship as a result of these types of white collar crime.
+2 #3 M.Davies 2019-01-05 08:57
Surely it would be inconceivable for a more developed EU countries judge to make any reference to external influence? One of the original pledges Portugal made on joining the EU was that it had or would work strenuously towards, an impartial judiciary.
Certainly 4 out of 5 Portuguese - including these Golden Visa judges - think Portugal's justice fails the country and who are we, as north Europeans from substantially different histories and cultures, to argue?
+7 #2 Jack Reacher 2019-01-04 22:10
Rotten to the core. Portugal is dangeroulsy close to being the most corrupt country in Europe..if not..the most. Even Ethiopa is taking measures to stamp out corruption.
+6 #1 nogin the nog 2019-01-04 19:12
hmm.
External influence is basically a polite way of saying the whole thing is corrupt and at best a
huge cover up. Democracy as I have said before is a wonderful idea.. :-*

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