Football Leaks defendant charged with fresh crime
Portuguese hacker Rui Pinto spoke for the first time in court. The whistleblower is on trial for allegedly committing 90 crimes.
Rui Pinto was made a defendant in another case by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the lawyer of the creator of the Football Leaks platform, Francisco Teixeira da Mota, revealed this Monday before his constituent made a statement in court.
“I wanted to communicate that on Friday, Rui Pinto became a new defendant in relation to facts that are on trial here. The case is three years old, but the Public Prosecutor’s Office only made Rui Pinto a defendant this Friday”, said the lawyer, as soon as he opened the session at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon.
According to Francisco Teixeira da Mota, the facts relating to this process took place between 2015 and 2018, and the Public Prosecutor’s Office had been aware of this information since 2019. “This is a perverse strategy, artificially prolonging the status of defendant,” he stressed.
Rui Pinto, 33 years old, has been charged with 90 crimes: 68 of undue access, 14 of violation of correspondence, six of illegitimate access, targeting entities such as Sporting, Doyen, the PLMJ law firm, the Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) and the Attorney General’s Office, and also for computer sabotage of SportingFootbal Club and extortion, in the attempted form. The latter crime concerns Doyen and was what also led to the indictment of the lawyer Aníbal Pinto.
The creator of Football Leaks has been free since August 7, 2020, “due to his cooperation” with the Judicial Police (PJ) but is, for security reasons, in the witness protection programme in an undisclosed location and under police protection.
