The Public Prosecution did not request the pretrial detention of any of the detainees under the “Red Card” process, as CMTV submitted. According to the Covina TV group, the Prosecutor of the Central Administration for Investigation and Criminal Procedure (DCIAP), Rosario Teixeira, did not request the preventive detention of Luis Felipe Vieira, Thiago Vieira, Jose Antonio dos Santos and Bruno Macedo.
For this decision, according to CMTV, the self-suspension of Luís Filipe Vieira as president of Benfica was decisive, which, according to Rosario Teixeira, removes the risk of continued criminal activity, and is one of the prerequisites for defining the most severe coercion. Measure: pretrial detention.
Luis Felipe Vieira’s lawyer, Manuel Magalhães e Silva, considered on Saturday that the explanations given by the self-appointed Benfica president to Judge Carlos Alexandre, in the context of the “red card” process, “completely make him clear”. Luis Filipe Vieira’s legal defender made statements to reporters after the sports director’s interrogation (which lasted nearly four hours) ended and showed his conviction that the answers given to the judge should avoid less stringent coercive measures.
“I strike a positive balance. My client answered all questions without exception. I confirm that Luis Felipe Vieira faced wiretapping during interrogation, but this was not the main method of evidence used by the prosecution,” he began by highlighting Manuel Magalhães e Silva.
When asked if he considered that Luis Felipe Vieira’s decision to suspend his term as Benfica president could avoid preventive detention, Magalhães e Silva demonstrated his conviction that this is a fact. If a decision is made for pre-trial detention, I will disagree with that decision. He stressed that a resource must be considered for the relationship.
Luis Felipe Vieira was one of the four arrested on Wednesday, in an investigation related to deals and financing of more than 100 million euros, with losses for the state and some companies.
According to the Central Administration for Criminal Investigation and Procedure (DCIAP), the issue at hand is facts that could constitute “crimes of breach of trust, qualified fraud, forgery, tax fraud and money laundering.”
For this investigation, approximately 45 search warrants were executed for companies, residences, law firms and banking institutions in Lisbon, Torres Vedras and Braga. Among the places where the searches took place is Benfica’s special security officer, who said in a statement that she was not constituted as suspects.
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