The Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) clarified that the Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DCIAP) received a complaint against Judge Ivo Rosa, leading to an investigation initiated on February 16, 2021.
Initially, the inquiry was handled by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the Lisbon Regional General Prosecutor, and following Ivo Rosa’s promotion to Appellate Judge, it moved to the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Supreme Court of Justice.
“No telephone interceptions were made in this inquiry,” the MP affirmed, emphasizing that all measures taken respected legally enshrined rights, freedoms, and guarantees, subject to prior judicial authorization and validated by a judge as required by law.
“In this investigation, the Public Prosecutor’s Office was assisted by the Judicial Police. Once gathered, the evidence required analysis. Upon completion, the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Supreme Court of Justice decided to close the inquiry on March 20, 2024,” the statement further elaborated.
Last week, CNN/TVI reported that Ivo Rosa was the target of a criminal case based on an anonymous complaint received by the DCIAP and the Judicial Police (PJ) while serving as an investigating judge at the Criminal Instruction Court.
The investigation allegedly involved access to the then-investigating judge’s billing, mobile location, and bank accounts, as reported by CNN/TVI.
The criminal process commenced in early 2021, months before Judge Ivo Rosa announced the preliminary decision in the Operation Marquês case in April of that year.
In that decision, the judge dismissed most of the charges in the Public Prosecutor’s indictment, a decision later overturned by the Lisbon Court of Appeal.
According to CNN/TVI, the complaint against Ivo Rosa involved suspicions of crimes such as corruption, embezzlement, and money laundering, allegations not confirmed in the MP’s statement released today.
On October 2, the Manifesto of the 50 demanded clarification from the MP regarding the inquiry, describing it as “extremely serious”.
In a communication, this civic movement, established in May 2024, referred to “an attempted criminal persecution” and stressed the “indispensability of a Public Prosecutor’s explanation on the reported facts and the criteria applied for initiating the investigations concerned”.
