Sócrates' spending spree in Paris - with his friend's credit card

Editor 19 June 2015

socrates2 Rosário Teixeira is quite certain that the money José Sócrates was splashing around Pairs was the proceeds of corruption as even the credit card used to go on a shopping spree the day before his arrest was in the name of Sócrates' friend, Carlos Santos Silva.

Operation Marquis involves the state prosecutor delving into the links between former PM José Sócrates and his very rich friend Carlos Santos Silva whose bank accounts, it is claimed, harboured millions owed to Sócrates in bent payments for favours extended when he was Portugal’s prime minister.

This new credit card information leads prosecutor Rosário Teixeira to conclude that at least some of the money in Silva’s ample bank account belongs to the former prime minister and was just being held for him.

Silva also paid for expensive artwork to decorate Sócrates' smart Paris apartment – he also paid for the apartment, a multi-million purchase that Sócrates claims was with money that he ‘borrowed’ from Silva.

The ‘borrowed’ money also paid to rent a house for a family member, buy mobile phones, pay for family dental care and more.

According to the prosecutor, Carlos Santos Silva benefited between 2005 and 2014 from €24 million of work for the Lena Group during Socrates' government, and he suggests that the contracts were of the type where a bung was involved.

The investigations continue and, amid charges that Sócrates is being held in a politically motivated action, the nation waits with great interest for the charges formally to be made and a trial date set that will see the former prime minister in the dock to explain his activities.

The latest indication is that charges will be made in November, before the one year anniversary of Sócrates' arrest.

The justification for the delay, given by the prosecutor to the Court of Appeal of Lisbon, was that he is "continuing to reconstitute the financial channels that have been identified and to interview those concerned, some of whom are outside the country."

The prosecutor also said that in March this year, a new rogatory letter was sent to the Swiss authorities asking for detailed information. Two months previously another was sent to the UK which was returned in March.