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Banco Privado Português (BPP) claims to have evidence, more precisely 75 documents, that reveal how João Rendeiro and the three former directors, Salvador Fezas Vital, António Guichard and Fernando Lima, diverted 11.6 million euros, reports the Public.
The former administrators and two other defendants are on trial for qualified tax fraud, breach of trust and money laundering.
The new documents await the decision of the panel of judges judging the case. If accepted, the evidence in question will give a new version of how the deviated values of BPP will have ended up “in the hands” of the accused, a way that will have been different from that described in the indictment.
According to Public, the new evidence indicates that the 11.6 million euros came from Timdington, that is, from the bank, directly to the defendants in October 2007. Thus, between October 11 and October 21, 2007 , there will be Eight transfers from that same Timdington account to external accounts, for the benefit of the defendants, for an amount of 11.6 million.
However, lawyers for the defendants allege illegalities in obtaining evidence and say that the bank does not have the legitimacy to conduct private investigations as the trial draws to a close.
The lawyers state that “if the criminal case is already in the trial phase (…) in no case will parallel private investigations be carried out, carried out in the shadows, with ignorance and in the absence of the other procedural subjects,” the publication cites .
They maintain that it is up to the Public Ministry to carry out any criminal investigation and that the AFF has always had these documents in its possession and, therefore, these could have already been made available to the Public Ministry. The lawyers also question whether other documents could not be left out of the investigation.
The Public Ministry considers, however, that this evidence should be accepted because it does not substantially modify the facts and, therefore, does not mean a change in the crimes.
