Appeals Court maintains decision not to try Paulo Pereira Cristóvão for corruption.
By Lusa
Published 4th October 2017
The Lisbon Court of Appeals (TRL) on Wednesday upheld the decision not to bring to trial the former Sporting vice-president Paulo Pereira Cristóvão, who was accused of corruption, for obtaining sensitive data from soccer referees.
In February, the Public Prosecution Service (MP) appealed against a "non-judgmental decision" issued by a former Criminal Investigation Court (TIC) judge, who was also a former inspector of the Judicial Police (PJ) of Lisbon.
"The Lisbon Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal by the Public Prosecutor's Office that the defendant Paulo Pereira Cristóvão was pronounced in this case, also for a crime of corruption, confirming the decision of the Judge of Instruction that did not pronounce him for this crime," the TRL said in a response sent this afternoon to Lusa.
Contacted by Lusa, the lawyer of Paulo Pereira Cristóvão was satisfied with the judgment of the TRL.
"As I said before leaving the Court of Criminal Investigation of Lisbon in February, it is good to note that the investigation phase still serves something, even if there has to be a decision of the Relation to confirm it," said Rui Costa Pereira .
The lawyer lamented, however, that this decision of the Lisbon Relation "only arose because of an incomprehensible decision of the Public Prosecution Service - guarantor of legality - of appealing a decision, which affirmed precisely the legality."
In April 2016, the MP accused the former leader of active corruption for allegedly obtaining sensitive data from almost 200 soccer referees through finance officials, also accused in the process, and his defense required the opening of education , alleging that his client was already being tried for these facts in the case known as the 'Cardinal case' and that he could not be tried twice for the same facts.
Margarida Gaspar, the judge in charge of the criminal investigation of the TIC in Lisbon, gave a reasoning in the defense decision of Pereira Cristóvão and did not pronounce the former manager of Sporting.
The TIC of Lisbon argued that the facts attributed to Paulo Pereira Cristóvão in this indictment have already been tried in the 'Cardinal case', in which the former vice-president of Sporting was sentenced to a suspended sentence of four and a half years in prison and to the payment of 25,000 euros to former assistant referee Jose Cardinal.
A different opinion had the deputy prosecutor of the prosecution MP, Vera Camacho, who at the investigation stage argued that they were dealing with different crimes, which is why he argued that all defendants should be pronounced and tried in this case of corruption, reason by which he brought an appeal, now denied by the judges adjudicating the Lisbon Relation.
The initial lawsuit had 13 defendants, but is now on trial for 11 defendants, without Paulo Pereira Cristóvão and without a lawyer, to whom the Lisbon ITC had provisionally suspended proceedings.
Among the 11 defendants, there were two lawyers, an engineer, two accountants, a commercial, a graphic and a collaborator of a bank who, through their functions, obtained, through three employees of a Lisbon finance office , personal, patrimonial, banking and fiscal elements, in exchange for money.
The three employees were working in the same finance division and, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office, will have collected close to 1.3 million euros unlawfully.
Already in the case known as the 'Cardinal case', Paulo Pereira Cristóvão was convicted of two crimes of embezzlement, one of illegitimate access and one of slanderous denunciation.
The defendant appealed against this judgment to the TRL which would confirm, in this case, the suspended sentence of four and a half years, but reduced the compensation from 40,000 to 25,000 euros.
In the 'Cardinal case', Pereira Cristóvão will have asked his collaborator Rui Martins to go to Funchal to make a deposit of 2,000 euros in José Cardinal's account, and later accuse him of having been bribed before a match between Sporting and Marítimo.
In addition, he was also tried for creating a list containing personal data of arbitrators, 35 of whom claimed civil damages as they felt intimidated by the disclosure of the same.
The TRL also confirmed that the former sports manager will have to pay € 500 to each of these 35 referees, for a total of € 17,500.
https://www.jn.pt/justica/interior/relacao-de-lisboa-mantem-decisao-de-nao-julgar-paulo-pereira-cristovao-por-corrupcao-8820396.html
