Former Prime Minister José Sócrates was interviewed by CNN Portugal on Friday, speaking about the current criticism of the Attorney General's Office (PGR) in the context of Operation Influencer and about his own legal case, Operation Marquês, strongly criticizing the former leadership of the Socialist Party (PS) and the Public Prosecution Service (MP).

"The MP won the elections. The face of elections or democratic institutions when the MP wins an election is what we have, the far right with 18%. What happened was a judicial coup, which was a huge success because it achieved exactly what they wanted. It is a typical case of 'lawfare', that is, the misuse of the judicial system to persecute a political adversary", he began by saying.

In this specific case, however, "there was a difference: They forgot to choose the judge". "Since they did not choose the judge, things went wrong from the start, because if they had the judge they usually had, Carlos Alexandre, they would all still be in prison today, the case would still be running normally", he continued.

Regarding the criticism that the PS has been making of the PGR in relation to Operation Influencer, José Sócrates left no room for doubt: "The previous leadership of the PS has no moral authority to criticize what is happening, because they were complicit with everything that happened before. Not just in my case, let's leave my case out of it. Manuel Pinho has been in prison for two and a half years, without a charge, accused of something horrible and is absolutely innocent".

The former socialist prime minister accused the PS of making "a conviction without a trial". "They tried him in the media pillory for no reason, without any possibility of defense. There is nothing more repugnant than someone convicting another person without a trial. It is a repulsive thing and that is what was done, both by Prime Minister António Costa and by the party president Carlos César", Sócrates argued.

For the former leader of the PS, the party "transformed constitutional guarantees into a criterion of opportunity". That is, "if it suits us, we criticize, if it does not suit us, we remain silent", he criticized, considering that "there is a double standard".

"The problem with the PS's moral authority is that, in the past, it did not make the criticisms that it now wants to make. Now, they have been removed from power by a judicial coup", he predicted.

"I am fighting not to go to trial"

José Sócrates also criticized the Public Prosecution Service and Justice in Portugal, giving his personal case as an example. "I was arrested in 2014, at Lisbon Airport, when I was entering the country, due to a risk of flight. Eight years later, just because I am doing my PhD in Brazil, they thought there was again a risk of flight and forced me to report to the Ericeira GNR, where I go every 15 days. The State sometimes becomes completely ridiculous", he said ironically.

"I am fighting not to go to trial, because I have that right", assured the former prime minister, guaranteeing that the accusations against him "are all so false" and "none of them are indicted".

"I proved my innocence during the investigation and, therefore, I have every right not to be humiliated by the State, to go to trial just so that the MP's face can be saved", he assured, stating that, with the statements that Sócrates may 'get rid' of the trial if the crimes he is accused of expire, it is intended to say that "he won in the office".

"Everything that happened between 2021 and 2024 is now invalid, and that is why I think that at this moment I am not subject to any indictment, not even any accusation. I do not have a Term of Identity and Residence", he also clarified.

José Sócrates repeated, several times, that if we want "to have the slightest glimpse of what remains of a state of law", the most recent ruling of the Lisbon Court of Appeal, from March this year, must be complied with, in which it is stated that the case files should be sent back to 2021, "so that the investigating judge can make a new investigative decision".

In March, the Lisbon Court of Appeal agreed with the former prime minister and businessman Carlos Santos Silva, when overturning the decision of the investigating judge Ivo Rosa, who sent them to trial for money laundering and document forgery.

The Court of Appeal, "within the scope of this appeal, will only declare the investigative decision null and void, in the part in which it indicts the defendants José Sócrates Carvalho Pinto de Sousa and Carlos Manuel dos Santos Silva for the practice, in co-authorship, of three crimes of money laundering, (...) and three crimes of document forgery, (...) for constituting a substantial alteration of the facts", reads the ruling on the Operation Marquês case to which Lusa had access today.

The Lisbon Court of Appeal also decided, as a consequence of the nullity of the indictment, "to send the case files to the court of first instance so that a new investigative decision can be issued".

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