Rui Pinto arrived this Friday at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon, at the Justice Campus, for the start of his trial, surrounded by a strong security operation. Many agents from various special forces of the Public Security Police (PSP) were deployed to different points on the Campus of Justice, in order to guarantee all necessary protection measures.
The trial started slightly late, a little after 10 am – the start was scheduled for 9:30 am – but the hacker, accused by the Public Ministry (MP) of 90 crimes, entered the court and testified, reaffirming that he does not consider himself a hacker and that nothing he did was for money. «I am here in this court in a strange situation: on the one hand, as an accused and, on the other, as a protected witness integrated in a Portuguese State program. As I always said, I don’t consider myself a hacker. I am a whistleblower or whistleblower, because I made public, in total good faith, a lot of information of manifest national and international public interest that, otherwise, would never be known. In addition, I never received any money for the information I revealed », he began by declaring, confessing that what he did is, for him, a cause for pride. «I also collaborated with several foreign authorities, and I am actively collaborating with the Portuguese authorities, who encouraged me in this collaboration, and I hope to continue to do so in the future. The revelations of serious irregularities and crimes are for me a source of pride and not of shame. I see today that there are important criminal investigations that have been initiated thanks to these revelations and I trust that there will be many more », he said.
On the other hand, one of Rui Pinto’s lawyers in the Football Leaks case, Francisco Teixeira da Mota, stressed that the trial takes place inside the courtroom: “In this country, there is still a regime that, in many aspects, has to be changed in terms of fighting corruption and criminal justice. As is evident, there have already been many people who protested, because there are many interests that have no interest in fighting corruption ”.
Accused of co-authoring an attempt to extort Doyen, Aníbal Pinto, also Rui Pinto’s lawyer, argued that there is no other option than absolution. «I will dismantle the prosecution of the MP step by step. I’ll clear everything up in the afternoon to the court. My defense strategy is very simple: tell the truth and everything I say is documented. The MP has to read the documents », he shot.
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