According to the courts' electronic platform, Citius, the incident of refusal raised by José Sócrates' defense was rejected on Wednesday by the judges Jorge Gonçalves, Albertina Pereira and Vasques Osório.

The request for the removal of the appellate judges Raquel Lima and Madalena Caldeira presented by Sócrates' defense was based on the fact that those two magistrates were no longer part of the Lisbon Court of Appeal when they issued the favorable decision to the appeal of the Public Ministry (MP), sending the former prime minister to trial for corruption and other crimes that had not been validated in 2021 by the criminal investigating judge Ivo Rosa.

Raquel Lima and Madalena Caldeira were already placed in the Porto Court of Appeal and in the Guimarães Court of Appeal, respectively, when the unfavorable decision to Sócrates was issued, but they were exclusively in this appeal of Operation Marquês by determination of the Superior Council of the Judiciary (CSM).

The information of the refusal of the STJ was advanced by SIC, which adds that the defense of Sócrates, in charge of the lawyer Pedro Delille, intends to appeal to the Constitutional Court.

In January, the judges of the Lisbon Court of Appeal decided that the former prime minister José Sócrates will go to trial for passive corruption in the Operation Marquês case, recovering almost the entire accusation of the MP.

According to the decision of the Court of Appeal, Sócrates, head of government between 2005 and 2011, will be tried for three crimes of corruption, 13 of money laundering and six of qualified tax fraud, among other illicit acts.

In the Operation Marquês case, Sócrates was accused by the MP, in 2017, of 31 crimes, namely passive corruption, money laundering, falsification of documents and tax fraud, but in the investigative decision, on April 9, 2021, the judge Ivo Rosa decided to acquit the former governor of 25 of the 31 crimes, pronouncing him for trial only for three crimes of money laundering and three of falsification of documents.

The decision of the judges of the Court of Appeal recovered almost in its entirety the accusation of the MP in Operation Marquês and determined the trial of 22 defendants for 118 economic-financial crimes, revoking the investigative decision of the judge Ivo Rosa, who referred to trial only José Sócrates, Carlos Santos Silva, the former minister Armando Vara, Ricardo Salgado and the former driver of Sócrates, João Perna.

The panel of judges also decided to send to trial the directors of Portugal Telecom (PT) Zeinal Bava and Henrique Granadeiro, the former director of the Lena group Joaquim Barroca, the businessman Hélder Bataglia and the former director of the luxury real estate development Vale do Lobo Rui Horta e Costa.

José Paulo Pinto de Sousa, cousin of José Sócrates, the former director of Vale do Lobo Gaspar Ferreira, the employees of Infraestruturas de Portugal Luís Silva Marques and José Luís Ribeiro dos Santos, the lawyer Gonçalo Trindade Ferreira, the wife of Carlos Santos Silva, Inês do Rosário, the ex-wife of the former prime minister, Sofia Fava, and the business administrator Rui Mão de Ferro will also be tried.

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