The request is supported by a ruling issued this week by the court of Castelo Branco, which, in compliance with a decision from the Coimbra Court of Appeal, ordered the closure of a case where the defendant, like Ricardo Salgado, was diagnosed with dementia, validated by an expert as a “definitive and irreversible incapacity.”
The decision emphasizes the “irreversible incapacity of the defendant to defend himself in court” and considers that maintaining the suspension of the case constitutes “a mere formality that merely disguises the inevitable, its closure,” considering the closure “the most appropriate solution in accordance with the dignity of the defendant and the process itself.”
Based on this ruling and highlighting the argumentation of the Castelo Branco court, Ricardo Salgado’s defense presented the request to the judges of the two main cases in which the former banker is on trial, arguing that the factual situation of the defendants is comparable and asserting that the fact that the defendant in these cases is Ricardo Salgado and not an anonymous citizen cannot justify continuing the trial.
“Justice should be ‘blind’ to names. But what has been observed, in this case, is that justice has been carried out ‘ad-hominem’ [against the man]. The same legal question has been scandalously decided in different ways before the same factual circumstances in different processes. Let’s be clear: all of this only happens due to the name of the current defendant and, furthermore, the endless and inadmissible time these proceedings have taken, for reasons that are certainly not attributable to this defense,” reads the request seen by Lusa.
Ricardo Salgado is on trial in three Espírito Santo Universe cases and Operation Marquês and has been sentenced to effective imprisonment in two other cases, related to the alleged corruption of former minister Manuel Pinho and the presumed embezzlement of 10.7 million euros from the Espírito Santo Group.
The BES/GES case has 18 defendants, with former BES president Ricardo Salgado as the main one. He answers for roughly 60 crimes, including one of criminal association and several of active corruption in the private sector and aggravated fraud.
The prosecution estimates that the acts allegedly committed between 2009 and 2014 by the defendants, former executives of BES and other GES entities, caused damages of 11.8 billion euros to the bank and the group.
The trial has been ongoing since October 15, 2024, at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon.
In the Operation Marquês case, whose trial began in July, Ricardo Salgado faces charges of three counts of active corruption, one of which involves a public office holder, and eight counts of money laundering.
Also in July, the Local Civil Court of Cascais declared the conservatorship of Ricardo Salgado, limiting the former banker’s rights and appointing his wife as guardian, effective from January 1, 2019.
The conservatorship of Ricardo Salgado, aged 81 and suffering from Alzheimer’s, was requested by the Public Prosecutor.
