Ricardo Salgado, the disgraced former president of Banco Espírito Santo, currently under house arrest as part of investigations into the collapse of the BES and Grupo Espírito Santo, issued a categorical denial of the accusation printed today in the Sol newspaper.
According to Salgado, the content highlighted on the front page of the weekly is a false and the result of “well-known motives.” In addition to confused facts, the report is nothing but "pure falsehood and fantasy."
According to Sol, five months before the collapse of Banco Espírito Santo, Ricardo Salgado transferred some of its most valuable assets to his wife’s name and those of his three children.
Ricardo Salgado says the Sol report is "not surprising", and today’s headline is just another episode in a saga started by Sol which is controlled by Álvaro Sobrinho, the former president of BES Angola.
Ricardo Salgado sent a rebuttal to media today.
In its August 14th edition, Sol published headline, "Salgado transferred fortune to his wife and children," adding that "Ricardo Salgado moved his assets, amounting to €1.8 billion, to his wife and three children before the collapse of the group. But this ploy did not prevent his arrest."
Salgado contends that this report "is false and continues a pattern of behavior whose motivations are well known. The report says that ‘273 buildings and 346 shares in buildings were passed to Salgado's wife, Maria João Bastos Salgado,’ which is a pure falsehood and fantasy.”
Whatever the truth, Salgado will end up in court where these many of these details will be exposed.
The director of Sol, José António Saraiva, refutes the charges levelled by Salgado.
"My independence is known and I have never published news at the request of anyone. The question that arises is whether the word of Sol is true or false, and we have documents that prove unquestionably its veracity. This kind of communicated (from Salgado) aims to question our information, but Sol has proven since its foundation that is not able to be manipulated.”
If the owner of Sol indeed is using his position as media proprietor to claim Salgado has been even more duplicitous that he already is suspected of being, we can expect yet another court case.
