The lawyer of former minister Manuel Pinho said today that he is convinced that the Public Ministry (MP) will not promote the preventive detention of the former governor in the scope of the EDP case, but stressed that he is prepared for all scenarios.
The former economy minister was detained on Tuesday morning after appearing for questioning at the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action in Lisbon.
"One of the hypotheses that is on the table is preventive detention and it is evident that, in a responsible way, I have to be prepared for all possible scenarios and one of the scenarios is that the Public Ministry asks for this measure of coercion" , Ricardo Sá Fernandes told journalists, adding: "Prognoses only at the end of the game."
Faced with whether the Public Ministry would opt for the most severe coercion measure for Manuel Pinho, after the former minister spent the night detained at the PSP Metropolitan Command, in Moscavide, the lawyer admitted that it is a possibility that he has to consider, but that hopes that doesn't happen.
Pinho's lawyer also said that the ex-governor's wife was also the target of an arrest warrant, but this was annulled and that Alexandra Pinho ended up being heard in the afternoon by the investigating judge. .
Manuel Pinho was appointed as a defendant in the EDP case in the summer of 2017, on suspicion of corruption and money laundering, in a case related to money from the Espírito Santo Group.
In the EDP/CMEC case, the Public Prosecutor's Office charges former administrators António Mexia and Manso Neto, in co-authorship, with four crimes of active corruption and one crime of economic participation in a business.
The case is related to the Contractual Balance Maintenance Costs (CMEC) in which Mexia and Manso Neto are suspected of corruption and economic participation in a business for the maintenance of the excessive rents contract, which, according to the Public Ministry, will have corrupted the former Minister of Economy Manuel Pinho and former Secretary of State for Energy Artur Trindade.
The process also has the administrator of REN and former consultant to Manuel Pinho João Conceição, Artur Trindade, former secretary of State for Energy of a PSD government, Pedro Furtado, responsible for regulation at the company that manages the energy networks, and the former president of BES, Ricardo Salgado, as defendants.
Source Lusa
