brit police prodedures rules mandates wishes etc have nothing to do with portuguese law or jurisdiction
It's worth reading it, Redblossom. Just a few extracts below.
The UK police / authorities were perfectly aware that anything submitted as a result of the Letters of Request (rogs and certain other documents) would form part of the process.
The requesting entities recognise that part of the material provided by them was in the sequence of the Letters of Request. The requesting entities have always understood that this material would be part of the current process files. However, a large part of the information was provided in an informal manner, expedited spontaneously, so as to guarantee the speed and efficiency of the investigations, namely those covered by International and Community Rights applicable to legal and police cooperation.They established an agreement right at the beginning that information / intelligence provided informally would be kept confidential, otherwise it would not have been shared.
The current inquiry is an international criminal inquiry of major relevance. In this sense, at the beginning of the inquiry, during a meeting between the Portuguese and UK police and legal authorities, including the requesting entities. Under the shelter of this basic agreement, material was provided during the course of the inquiry, on an almost daily basis.(…)
If this was not the case, or in other words, if the transmission of information by the requesting entities had not pre-supposed respective confidentiality, this information would never have been transmitted to the Portuguese authorities, as according to what was stated previously this information would be subject to confidentiality covered by UK Rights and Law.
