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Rui Pinto’s defense requested the dismissal of Judge Helena Leitão, the PUBLIC confirmed to a source at the Lisbon Court of Appeals (TRL). The news had initially been advanced this Wednesday by the Mail in the morning. The magistrate is a deputy judge on the panel who was chosen to try Rui Pinto, author of the Football leaks who will go to trial for 90 crimes.
The reason for this request for an excuse is the fact that Judge Helena Leitão is a client of João Medeiros in another case. The cause joined the PLMJ law firm between 1992 and 2019, one of the entities whose information will have been extracted by Rui Pinto, according to the prosecution of the Public Ministry. João Medeiros is also one of the assistants in the process in which hacker He is accused of 90 crimes.
The lawyer was one of those affected by the computer attack suffered by PLMJ. João Medeiros’ mailbox was later published on the Benfica Market blog, whose authorship the Public Ministry attributes to Rui Pinto. João Medeiros was also part of the Benfica SAD defense team in the context of the E-Toupeira case, a link that, for the Public Ministry, would have motivated the computer attack allegedly committed by Rui Pinto against this law firm.
Judge Helena Leitão had previously ruled on this connection with attorney João Medeiros, informing the Public Ministry that the relationship was “strictly professional” and that she did not consider that these events were the reason for an excuse request in the case file. Rui Pinto is accused of 90 crimes and awaits trial in a residence under the custody of the Judicial Police, after being released from pretrial detention, a regime he had been in for over a year.
The magistrate did not even request to apologize the case, contrary to what happened with judge Paulo Registo. The magistrate of the Lisbon Central Criminal Court was chosen to preside over the panel of judges at the Rui Pinto trial, which also includes Ana Paula Conceição and Helena Leitão. The judge is also part of the panel that will judge the case. E-mole, which involves former Benfica legal adviser, Paulo Gonçalves.
Hours after the draw, publications were published on social networks, in which the magistrate showed sympathy for the club towards Benfica. In one of these records, which, however, were removed from the magistrate’s profile, Paulo Registo criticized arbitration in a “incarnation” match against FC Porto, even demanding the departure of the current president of the Federation Arbitration Council Portuguesa de Fútbol, with the comment “Fontelas Gomes cbrao [sic] asks to resign. “
The presiding judge of the Lisbon district, Amélia Almeida, guaranteed, at that time, to the PUBLIC that the distribution of this process “was electronic and public.” Already Francisco Teixeira da Mota, one of Rui Pinto’s lawyers, classified the situation as “troubling”, guaranteeing that the defense would meet to discuss the situation and assess what measures should be taken.
Paulo Registo requested his removal from the process, considering that “suspicions were raised that these two processes were intentionally distributed”, with “the intention of benefiting Benfica” and harming the two accused in the process, Rui Pinto and the former lawyer of hacker Aníbal Pinto, and also FC Porto. Due to this suspicion of his impartiality, Paulo Registo preferred to request his expulsion.
