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In a message that appeared on Rui Pinto's Twitter account and confirmed the authenticity of one of his lawyers and also Pinto's partner, criticized the Football Leaks informant, the Portuguese investigative authorities in a very sharp tone. Pinto calls himself "a kind of political prisoner." He was silenced for not being allowed to talk to journalists, writes Pinto, who is currently in custody.
Pinto accused the prosecutors in his home country, to be interested in the investigation of financial and corruption crimes. As an example, the 30-year-old Portuguese man states that he sent numerous clues to the DCIAP, a special unit for prosecuting serious white-collar crime, in 2017 and 2018 via their anonymous whistleblower platform. But there was no investigation or investigation into Portugal because of the Football Leaks revelations.
The Portuguese authorities, he had offered, as previously France and Belgium, cooperation, claims Pinto in his tweet. But Prosecutor Patricia Barao, who was investigating him, would want to use his offer of cooperation exclusively against him. She would not investigate the crimes of others.
Length of remand has been extended
The prosecution in its present form is a "threat to the balance of democracy and the rule of law in Portugal," writes Pinto, "a kind of state in its own state, according to its own logic 'I want, can and command' has the luxury decide who is being investigated and against whom not ". Uncomfortable evidence would be ignored. He fought against this "depravity", writes Pinto, "and that's why I'm a target to be slaughtered." Fortunately, in court, he'll "have the ideal stage to tell much of what I know."
Pinto's statements become public after a judge has agreed to extend his pre-trial detention for another three months until December 23. The former student of historical science sits in a solitary cell in a police station in Lisbon and has no contact with other detainees. SPIEGEL has repeatedly asked the Portuguese judiciary to interview Pinto and all requests have been rejected. In a recent search of his cell, the officials are said to have even confiscated Pinto's diary.
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Last week, the Attorney General's Office in Lisbon brought charges against the Football Leaks informant. In their nearly 200 pages of indictment, the investigators accuse Pinto of crimes in 147 cases. These include, inter alia, allegations of attempted blackmail, illegal access to confidential data and breach of the secrecy of correspondence. Pinto has always denied on request of SPIEGEL, to be a hacker.
Request for United Nations support
The allegations in the indictment refer to Pinto lawyers William Bourdon and Francisco Teixeira da Mota as "confirmation of the prosecutor's will to silence and destroy Rui Pinto". The indictment contains "numerous lies" and "nothingness". Pinto's attorney team now has time to comment on the allegations until October 12. Subsequently, a judge will decide if it will come to a process.
In response to the indictment and the extension of pre-trial detention, Pinto's attorney Bourdon sent a letter to David Kaye, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Expression protection in Geneva last Tuesday, asking for his support in the Pinto case. His client, Bourdon writes, would be "artificially and unfairly criminalized by the Portuguese authorities while those responsible for the financial leaks revealed by the Football Leaks should enjoy unlawful protection."
Rui Pinto is the whistleblower who has leaked to SPIEGEL over 70 million documents from the football industry, a data volume of more than 3.4 terabytes. The SPIEGEL has since published more than 800 articles based on the Football Leaks data set with its partners in the research network European Investigative Collaborations.
