Lisbon, Sept. 3, 2025 (Lusa) - Former Portuguese prime minister Jose Socrates admitted in court on Wednesday that in 2014 he met with the then deputy prime minister of Angola in New York (US) to intercede for the Lena civil construction group, rejecting that he was paid for the contact.
The public prosecutor's office alleges in the indictment in the Operação Marquês corruption case that the contact between Manuel Vicente and José Sócrates, three years after the latter left the government, was financially compensated by the Lena group, with the money passing through various companies.
"It's false, I never received any money. I didn't engage in lobbying," José Sócrates said today during the seventh session of his corruption trial in Lisbon.
The former Socialist Party prime minister reiterated that he made the contact in "strict fulfilment" of what he considers "to be the duties of a former prime minister" and downplayed the fact that, in an initial call with Manuel Vicente in which the meeting in New York was arranged, he said that it was about people to whom he owed “over” those years "a lot of attention".
Questioned by the prosecutor Rómulo Mateus about the use of this expression, José Sócrates explained its use with the fact that these were people who had supported him in an election campaign.
"In 2009, these people supported me. They're people I've met, who I'm promoting to someone internationally. I thought it was an appropriate phrase," said the head of the Portuguese government between 2005 and 2011.
On 9 July, the former prime minister said that he had met Lena group director Joaquim Barroca at a Socialist Party (PS) rally in 2009.
Initially, José Sócrates and Manuel Vicente considered meeting in Angola, but the meeting ended up taking place in New York after they realised that they would be in the US city on the same date.
The Lena group's request was related to a lack of payments on a project the group was working on in Angola and the aim was for its directors to meet with the vice-president of Angola at the time.
During this morning's session, Rómulo Mateus also recalled the willingness expressed by José Sócrates on 9 July to hand over a list of the other companies he had interceded for after leaving the government.
The former minister replied that he hadn't done so because the companies concerned hadn't authorised it to be made public.
On a day dedicated to clarifications on topics discussed in recent sessions, the public prosecutor's office also confronted José Sócrates with a list of his telephone contacts in which two numbers appear with the name ‘RSalgado’, which would refer to Ricardo Salgado.
According to an expert, the contacts were introduced at a time when the former head of government said he didn't have the former banker's number.
"I don't even know if they're his numbers, honestly. And why two? Maybe I put them in at this time, I have no memory," he insisted, emphasising that it was his secretary who spoke to the secretary of the former chairman of Banco Espírito Santo (BES), with whom he "stood on ceremony".
José Sócrates, 67, has been indicted on 22 counts, including three of corruption, for allegedly receiving money to benefit the Lena civil construction group, the Espírito Santo Group (GES) and the Vale do Lobo development in the Algarve.
There are a total of 21 defendants in the case, who have generally denied committing the 117 economic and financial crimes they are accused of.
The trial has been taking place since 3 July at Lisbon's Central Criminal Court.
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