Angolan billionaire rejects fresh criminal charges
File photo: Lusa
Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto’s lawyers said on Monday that their client delivered a hard drive in 2018 containing data related to the recent revelations about Isabel Dos Santos’ fortune to the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF).
“The undersigned lawyers declare that their client, Mr. Rui Pinto, assumes responsibility for having delivered, at the end of 2018, to the Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF), a hard drive containing all data related to the recent revelations about the fortune of Isabel dos Santos, her family and all individuals who may be involved in the fraudulent operations committed at the expense of the Angolan State and, eventually, other foreign countries,” a note by William Bourdon and Francisco Teixeira da Mota states.
In the statement, Rui Pinto’s lawyers said that the founder of Football Leaks wanted “to help understand complex operations conducted with the complicity of banks and lawyers who not only impoverish the people and the State of Angola, but may have seriously damaged Portugal’s interests”.
They also state that Rui Pinto handed over this hard drive, “in fulfilment of what he understands to be a duty of citizenship”, and “without any counterpart,” after becoming aware of the missions carried out by the PPLAAF organisation, “allowing them to use the data as they saw fit”.
In the note, the lawyers wrote that Rui Pinto “is pleased to see that, thanks to the intensive work of the ICIJ consortium of journalists, all the data have been explored, verified, validated and, therefore, headed the disclosures that will necessarily lead to the opening of criminal investigations in many countries, including Portugal”.
The International Investigative Journalism Consortium (ICIJ) revealed on 19 January over 715,000 files under the name ‘Luanda Leaks’ that detail financial schemes of Isabel dos Santos and her husband, Sindika Dokolo, which allegedly allowed money to be taken from the Angolan public treasury, using tax havens.
Rui Pinto’s lawyers also argue that: “proof is provided that without the immense revelations of Luanda Leaks, made possible by our client, the regulatory, police and judicial authorities would have done nothing”.
“Thanks to our client, Portuguese citizens and the world have access to the truth of an extraordinary system of predation and corruption, which is seriously damaging to Portugal, Angola and other countries”, they add.
They also say that “the decisions already taken by the Bank of Portugal, PWC, and others to come, demonstrate the exceptional importance of the Luanda Leaks revelations”.
“The responsibility of the authorities is now to act and open the necessary investigations – already opened in Angola – and at the same time recover large sums of money, but it must be said that it is the same Portuguese authorities that have been keeping Rui Pinto in prison for almost a year, under the pretext of an attempt at extortion, and that until now, they have only asked for his cooperation with the sole intention of incriminating him,” they stress.
Rui Pinto’s lawyers also stressed that “this collaboration with PPLAAF and ICIJ is exclusively related to the delivery of this hard drive and does not prejudice the historical cooperation that has taken place with the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) consortium since the first Football Leaks revelations”.
Last Wednesday, the Angolan Attorney General’s Office announced that Isabel dos Santos had been officially named a suspect in a case in which she is accused of mismanagement and misappropriation of funds from the state oil company Sonangol and is also targeting Portuguese allegedly facilitating the business of the daughter of former President José Eduardo dos Santos.
According to the investigation of the consortium, of which Expresso and SIC are part, Isabel dos Santos allegedly set up a cover-up scheme that allowed her to divert more than $100 million (€90 million) to a Dubai-based company whose sole shareholder was Paula Oliveira.
The investigation also revealed that, in less than 24 hours, Sonangol’s account with EuroBic Lisboa, the bank of which Isabel dos Santos is the main shareholder, was emptied and left with a negative balance the day after the resignation of the Angolan oil company.
EuroBic has already announced that the businesswoman will leave the shareholder structure, the same happening at Efacec and after the three non-executive members of the NOS board linked to Isabel dos Santos announced her departure from the telecommunications operator.
A week ago, the consultancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) announced the severance of relations with the companies controlled by Isabel dos Santos, while Sonae said it was following the situation with concern, due to the allusion to NOS, controlled by ZOPT, of which it is a shareholder, just like Isabel dos Santos.
“The leaking of this material to @PPLAAF, and in turn to @ICIJorg’s media partners, provides indisputable evidence of unnecessary misery that was inflicted on the ordinary people of Angola, and the role of enablers who got rich by helping” – @RyleGerard https://t.co/3FCpGWXGP1
— PPLAAF (@PPLAAF) January 27, 2020
Rui pinto ( football leaks ) est le lanceur d’alertes (Luanda leaks )Fier de le défendre . Comme John Doe (Panama papers ) ils sont les Snowden de la corruption internationale . Les corrupteurs au Portugal gambadent et pinto est détenu absurdité. Exigeons leur protection .
— William Bourdon (@BourdonWilliam2) January 27, 2020
#Angola: #FootballLeaks #whistleblower is the source of the #LuandaLeaks https://t.co/swfx4zjZ2A
— PPLAAF (@PPLAAF) January 27, 2020
Relativamente aos #LuandaLeaks se pode beneficiar ou prejudicar @RuiPinto_FL “Eu penso que prejudicá-lo já não podem muito porque da forma como o sistema judicial o tem tratado, não há muito mais prejuízos que lhe possam fazer” Francisco Teixeira da Mota (advogado) #FootballLeaks pic.twitter.com/wozV0tCy2X
— Free Rui Pinto (@XEunomieX) January 27, 2020
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