“The news that Judge Ivo Rosa was investigated, surveilled, and his life scrutinized for three years makes me grimace with disgust,” wrote José Sócrates in a message sent to the news agency Lusa.
A criminal investigation concerning Judge Ivo Rosa while he was serving as an examining magistrate at the Investigation Criminal Court was reportedly based on an anonymous complaint received by the Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DCIAP) and the Judicial Police (PJ).
In this probe, the Public Prosecutor’s Office reportedly accessed the then magistrate’s billing, mobile phone location, and bank accounts.
In his message, the former PS Secretary-General refers to the Marquês Operation, a case in which he is being tried.
“Before, there was the tampering in judge selection, my detention at the airport, and the defamation campaign organized by the state. Then came the clerical error, the change of the accusation, and the unbelievable working group that is now exercising administrative oversight over a specific criminal process. More recently, violating the basic dignity of human beings, the court insists on trying a demented citizen who is not in a condition to defend himself,” he adds, referring to banker Ricardo Salgado.
In the instructive decision for the Marquês Operation, Judge Ivo Rosa decided to take José Sócrates to trial for three crimes of money laundering and three for document forgery, but the former Prime Minister was cleared of 25 charges.
Today, concerning the TVI/CNN news report, the Manifesto of the 50 demanded clarification from the Public Prosecutor’s Office about an alleged inquiry into Judge Ivo Rosa, supposedly based on an anonymous complaint and involving access to bank accounts, describing it as “extremely serious.”
In a statement sent to newsrooms, this civic movement created in May 2024 referred to “a penal persecution attempt” and stated that “clarification from the Public Prosecutor about the reported facts and the criteria applied to open the investigations in question is indispensable.”
The Manifesto of the 50, which includes figures such as former Presidents of the Assembly of the Republic Augusto Santos Silva and Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues, advocates for the President of the Republic and the President of the Constitutional Affairs Committee to demand clarification from the Attorney General’s Office.
