The Director of the Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DCIAP), Rui Cardoso, emphasized on Thursday that a piece published by Diário de Notícias (DN) a week ago, alleging that 22 communications between former Prime Minister António Costa and the three main figures in Operation Influencer had been omitted from the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) and the Central Court of Criminal Instruction (TCIC), includes “false statements, clearly articulated.”
“This issue began with a DN article in the afternoon, which claimed the DCIAP omitted information, making statements that are fully false. These are not errors. As the article itself states, DN had access to the judge’s order, which details all this and explicitly says that what was presented had already been timely submitted, and that was distorted,” Rui Cardoso stated in an interview with SIC Notícias.
He clarified that “all wiretaps were conducted legally, with judicial authorization, and were presented for judicial review within the lawful period to the competent judge, who was the judge of the TCIC.” However, “in some cases, it was not detected that António Costa was involved in those communications.”
“Legally, in cases where the interception is not directly targeted at a person holding the position of Prime Minister, the procedure is different. The competent judge to authorize, according to the law, is the judge of the case, not the STJ judge, and that occurred,” he said.
The DCIAP director further noted that, in practice, 22 interceptions were not submitted to the STJ judge, as “13 of them were duplicates of previous submissions” due to a technical error, whereby the system might record the same communication twice.
“This leaves nine. Of these nine, some did not even involve the Prime Minister. One was merely a notification from MEO, stating contact by X. Others were communications from the Socialist Party’s system, which, I believe, sends SMS messages to members, signed as António Costa. These were not his communications; they were from an automated system. Initially, it was not detected that these communications involved António Costa—and technically, they did not,” he highlighted.
Rui Cardoso revealed that during the hearing, a certain number “only appeared in the interception recording of the phone,” whereas it should have also appeared in the recording system. “This was only noticed later,” he said, stressing that the official filed the same-day request to forward the interception to the STJ, which can only order its transcription or immediate destruction.
Of the seven interceptions involved, six were attempts to contact, stated the PGR in the same communication. The seven interceptions “were immediately brought to the attention of the STJ president, via the TCIC examining magistrate.”
“Transcription was not needed. Immediate destruction can only occur at the end of the inquiry to allow for the defense’s counterarguments,” he explained.
And he reiterated: “I must emphasize greatly that António Costa was not targeted by wiretaps. The targets of the wiretaps were other individuals. In other people’s conversations, there are some in which he participates. This can happen with him, with me, with you, with the Attorney General, with the STJ president, with anyone. We are all equal to the law in these respects.”
It is noteworthy that, as per DN, António Costa was wiretapped 22 times without the higher courts’ knowledge, in talks with suspects from Operation Influencer.
The wiretaps were reportedly conducted between 2020 and 2022, involving João Galamba, then Deputy Secretary of State and Energy, Diogo Lacerda Machado, a friend and former government advisor for TAP’s privatization, and João Pedro Matos Fernandes, then Minister of Environment and Climate Action.
Operation Influencer Divided into Three Inquiries
The Operation Influencer case was split into three inquiries by then PGR Lucília Gago, combining data center information from Sines in one, lithium exploration concessions in Montalegre and Boticas in another, and the hydrogen production project in Sines in the third.
The current PGR, Amadeu Guerra, stated on November 7 that the case had a pending appeal in the Lisbon Court of Appeal regarding access to emails seized from lawyers, unaware the appeal had been resolved in favor of the defendants, leaving the MP with no access to those emails.
On November 7, 2023, five individuals, including Costa’s then-chief of staff, Vítor Escária, were detained and later released in connection with Operation Influencer.
There are suspicions of criminal activity in the construction of a data center in Sines, Setúbal district, in lithium exploration in Montalegre and Boticas, both in the Vila Real district, and in hydrogen production, also in Sines.
The case led to the fall of the government with an absolute majority now under the presidency of the European Council.
The DCIAP omitted 22 communications between António Costa and the main figures in Operation Influencer to the STJ and TCIC. The wiretaps, collected between 2020 and 2022, involve João Galamba, Diogo Lacerda Machado, and João Matos Fernandes.
