Lisbon, Oct. 3, 2024 (Lusa) - The Central Criminal Court of Lisbon has declared that 11 crimes in the BES/GES case have reached the statute of limitations, three of which were charged by the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) to the former chairman of the Espírito Santo Group (GES), Ricardo Salgado.
According to the order signed by Judge Helena Susano on Tuesday, to which Lusa had access today and which was first reported by Observador, the former banker saw two offences of document forgery and one of infidelity dropped from the list of 65 crimes for which he had been charged by the Public Prosecutor's Office in 2020.
At issue are one offence of forgery relating to a document between the end of 2013 and the beginning of 2014 with a declaration attributed to the government of the Fonden entity, another of forgery of a contract between the company ES Tourism Europe and another entity, and one of infidelity, for using BES in December 2013 in operations with BES London.
The public prosecutor's recent survey of crimes at risk of being statute-barred also indicates that Salgado could face another crime of forgery on 24 November and another two by the end of December. In the first quarter of 2025, three more crimes of document forgery will be time-barred in January, one of infidelity at the end of February and another three of infidelity by 28 March.
The magistrate's order also declares that three offences (two of forgery and one of infidelity) against Francisco Machado da Cruz, one offence of infidelity against former administrator Morais Pires, Pedro Góis Pinto, Etienne Cadosch and Michel Creton are time-barred, as well as one offence of document forgery against Paulo Nacif Jorge, who will not stand trial as this was the only offence against him.
However, there are several defendants in the case also known as Universo Espírito Santo with more offences due to expire by the end of the first quarter of 2025, namely Francisco Machado da Cruz, Amílcar Morais Pires, Pedro Góis Pinto, Pedro Almeida e Costa, Cláudia Boal Faria, Etienne Cadosch, Michel Creton, João Alexandre Silva and Nuno Escudeiro.
The Universo Espírito Santo criminal case trial will begin on 15 October, more than a decade after the Espírito Santo Group (GES) collapsed in August 2014. The main defendant is former BES chairman Ricardo Salgado, who has been accused of 65 crimes, including criminal association, active corruption, document forgery, qualified fraud, and money laundering.
Considered one of the biggest cases in the history of Portuguese justice, this case brings together 242 inquiries, which were joined, and complaints from more than 300 natural and legal people living in Portugal and abroad.
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the collapse of GES caused losses of more than €11.8 billion.
JGO/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
