Rui Pinto is detained for involvement in Football Leaks – 70 million documents that reveal the business of several football clubs.
Rui Pinto’s lawyers, William Bourdon and Francisco Teixeira da Mota, now claim that their client is also at the origin of the Luanda Leaks, revealed by various media outlets that are part of an international investigative journalism consortium.
This International Investigative Journalism Consortium (ICIJ) revealed on January 19th more than 715 thousand files, under the name ‘Luanda Leaks’, which detail financial schemes of Isabel dos Santos and her husband, Sindika Dokolo, which will have allowed withdraw money from the Angolan public purse, using tax havens.
In a note sent to newsrooms, Rui Pinto’s lawyers “declare that their client, Mr. Rui Pinto assumes the responsibility of having delivered, at the end of 2018, to the Whistleblower Protection Platform in Africa (PPLAAF), a hard disk containing all the data related to the recent revelations about Isabel dos Santos’ fortune, his family and all individuals who may be involved in fraudulent operations committed at the expense of the Angolan State and, eventually, other foreign countries “.
In the document, the lawyers claim that Rui Pinto “he sought, therefore, to help understand complex operations conducted with the complicity of banks and lawyers that not only impoverish the people and the State of Angola, but may have seriously damaged Portugal’s interests”. “There is proof that, without the immense revelations of Luanda Leaks, made possible thanks to our client, the regulatory, police and judicial authorities would have done nothing”
“Rui Pinto clarifies that he delivered this hard drive, in compliance with what he believes to be a duty of citizenship, and without any counterpart, after learning about the missions carried out by the organization PPLAAF, allowing them to use the data as they see fit”, reads in document sent by the Portuguese lawyers. “Rui Pinto is pleased to see that, thanks to the intense work of the ICIJ consortium of journalists, all the data was explored, verified, validated and, therefore, spearheaded the revelations that will necessarily lead to the opening of criminal investigations in many countries, including Portugal “.
Portuguese representatives also say that “proof is made that, without the immense revelations of Luanda Leaks, made possible thanks to 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 “.
The two lawyers also write that the “decisions already taken by Banco de 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 to open the necessary investigations – already opened in Angola – and at the same time to recover large sums of money “.
But they add that “it must be said that it is the same Portuguese authorities who have kept Rui Pinto in prison for almost a year, under the pretext of an attempted extortion, and who, until now, have only asked for his collaboration with the sole intention of self-incriminating him. ”
The letter sent to the newsrooms concludes that Rui Pinto “would like to remind you that this collaboration with PPLAAF and ICIJ is exclusively related to the delivery of this hard disk and that it does not prejudice the historical cooperation that it has carried out with the European Investigative Collaborations consortium ( EIC) since the first revelations of Football Leaks “.
Last Wednesday, the Attorney General of the Angolan Republic announced that Isabel dos Santos had been constituted accused in a process in which she is accused of mismanagement and embezzlement of funds by the state oil company Sonangol and which also aims at Portuguese allegedly facilitators of the business of the daughter of ex-President José Eduardo dos Santos.
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