a member of the Liberal Initiativel (IL), Patrícia Gilvaz, was the one who best highlighted the main vulnerability of the candidate director of the Strategic Defense Information Service (SIED), the external arm of the Portuguese Information System (SIRP): the total lack of professional experience in Jose Pedro Marinho da Costa in the secret sector.
“In his curriculum there are few ties to intelligence, security and defense. The reality he will encounter in the new positions will be very specific and almost mean a career change. What personal training have you had to fulfill these roles?Gilvas asked.
This was the vulnerability most exploited by right-wing opposition deputies – there were no questions from the PCP, BE, PAN and Livre – during the election. joint hearing, this Wednesday, of the Constitutional Affairs and National Defense committees.
Chega’s deputy, Pedro Pessanha, also underlined that he had “seen the CV” of the nominated director and asked “what is the area”, within Marinho da Costa’s training, “more useful for the new position and what is the experience in intelligence?”.
The man chosen by the government to lead SIED, remember that he is a career diplomatpromoted this year to minister plenipotentiary (a category below ambassador), was Diplomatic advisor to former Prime Minister José Sócratesdid everything pathway in the MNEwhere, depending on his position, he held positions in various embassies and in management, including as Director of Institutional Affairs Servicesat the Directorate-General for European Affairs, Director of Ceremonial Services, Travel, Dispensations and Privileges, of the State Protocol It is Head of the Department of Bilateral Relations with North American Countries and bee US service departmentof the Directorate-General for Foreign Policy.
In defense of and in response to Chega’s provocation over the alleged “favoring” of the diplomatic “lobby”, coastal seainfamous inexperienced with these types of controlsrecalled that “of the seven former directors of SIED, five were diplomats”.
The previous one was Embassy Counselor Carlos Pires (current Secretary of State for Defense), appointed in 2019 and who, as DN has already reported, will not have left work at SIED, an increasingly weakened service of resources.
The difference is that until then only ambassadors had risen to the top of the hierarchy (the first, in 1997, Monteiro Portugal, followed by Vasco Bramão Ramos, Caimoto Duarte and João da Câmara).
O The diplomat-designate also argued that in his career he was “constantly changing positions, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at various embassies, in strategic areas for the national interest.” (he was in Marseille, Morocco and Cape Verde)” and that he had “several contacts” with “elements of SIED”.
He acknowledged that he knows little or nothing about the operation of the service when asked by PSD (Andreia Neto), Chega and IL representatives about the content of the DN news reporting on the critical situation of the service, the lack of financial resources to fully fulfill the missions and the reduction of the so-called “antennae”, liaison officers that the SIED should have in the strategic regions.
“I don’t know how the service is organized. I’ve had some contacts. It’s classified stuff and I don’t have any information,” he admitted.
Closed in hearts when asked who will be your deputy directorwhose name, taken for granted by several sources connected to the SIED, is causing another shock wave in the secret bureaus (the first was when the nominated director was known).
As reported by DN, it concerns a SIED staff, where it entered in 2010 by the hand of former director Jorge Silva Carvalho, the same year in which, as already mentioned, Marinho da Costa was at Sócrates.
Just father and brother ambassadors – the latter chief of staff to a foreign minister in the current government – the alleged future deputy director is also part of the diplomatic ‘lobby’, which would thus be strengthened by this eventual promotion which has been criticized as ‘meteorical’.
“I have some ideas, but I will not speak to the general secretary of the SIRP until after my inauguration,” he replied.
If it becomes reality, this choice of a deputy director will further accentuate the general discontent at SIED, which due to the escalation of diplomats will lose one of the most experienced managers, still number two, Melo Gomes.
This general army officer has held this position since 2012 and was passed over as director for the second time (the first was in 2019 with Carlos Pires).
This time he decided to slam the door and will leave SIED shortly after the new leader took office. For the first time, SIED no longer has military officers in leadership positions (there were eight in leadership roles at stations, such as “antennae”), which may make it difficult to join the armed forces (contacts with the Detached National Forces are essential), which José Pedro Marinho da Costa stressed he wanted to strengthen, as well as with the security forces and services.
During the audition, the PSD returned to reiterate that there has been a breach of trust in the field of information servicess, emphasizing that he “did not participate” in the choice of the new director of SIED, breaking an unwritten political agreement with the PS, because the Prime Minister, António Costa, did not respond to the party’s request for the General Secretary of SIRP Graça Mira Gomes, for her actions in the case, in a judicial investigation, in which SIS recovered a computer belonging to the Ministry of Infrastructure.
It was later, at the urging of the IL deputy, who wanted to know what her action would be if faced with the same situation, that Marinho da Costa respondsu: “I will always act in accordance with the Prime Minister’s directives and through a hierarchical channel, namely the Secretary General of the SIRP. We respond to a hierarchy,” he stressed.
Source: DN
