This Thursday, the PS rejected a series of requests asking for documentation about the incidents that took place at the Ministry of Infrastructure on April 26 and the notes from Frederico Pinheiro’s computer, as they were beyond the reach of the Commission of Inquiry.
The only request that the PS approved on Thursday at the TAP investigative committee, out of seven voted on, was a request for documents, submitted by the PSD, regarding the “buying and selling of the interest” of the former shareholder of TAP David Neeleman and “the transfer of 55 million euros”.
For example, omitted was a PSD request to send “notes regarding TAP” on the service computer of Frederico Pinheiro, former assistant to the Minister of Infrastructure.
A request from Chega was also rejected, asking the Minister of Infrastructure to record “all communications between him, the Prime Minister, Dr. António Costa, and between both of them and the Secretary of State António Mendonça Mendes”.
Prior to this vote, the PS Coordinator of the TAP Commission of Inquiry, Bruno Aragão, stressed that the PS would not approve the requests because they understood they were “outside the scope” of the commission.
This justification was criticized by opposition parties, with PSD deputy Paulo Moniz deeming it “an apparent and recurring exercise of the PS steamroller in terms of requests in this committee”.
Paulo Moniz pointed out that before being handed over to the judicial police, the computer owned by Frederico Pinheiro was under the surveillance of the information services for 24 hours, and stressed that it is important to clarify whether during these 24 hours “maintaining the integrity of the computer information”, “particularly the notes of the meetings he attended and made”.
“The problem and the methodical doubt about what the PS intends to hide with regard to the figures is rightly growing,” he said.
Chega Filipe Melo’s deputy believed that the leadership of these requests “is symptomatic of the PS parliamentary group seeking to protect members of the government” and “withholding relevant information” from the committee, accusing the socialists of “creating a anti-democratic attitude”.
The parliamentary leader of the Bloco de Esquerda, Pedro Filipe Soares, criticized the idea, which tries to “be pierced by the PS”, saying that the TAP investigative committee “deviates from the essence”.
“A barrier is created to prevent this commission of inquiry from inspecting because those inspected are incapable of even having one word or conduct that could be considered beyond reproach and, in effect, this restriction becomes the commission’s inability to make its object to judge, those are the political responsibilities at TAP”he said.
In response to this criticism, PS deputy Bruno Aragão rejected that his party has an “anti-democratic attitude” and stressed that “everyone will take their responsibility and that is what characterizes democracy”.
In this first period, before the hearing of the former CFO of TAP João Weber Gameiro, the parties also welcomed the conclusions of the report on the leak of information by the Commission of Inquiry to TAP, with thanks to PS deputy Alexandra Leitão for drafting it .
Referring to statements by PS parliamentary leader Eurico Brilhante Dias, PSD deputy Hugo Carneiro said that, “given some conclusions that have come to light”, the fact that the report does not include a deputy, adviser or technician is responsible for this information leak is “very important”.
Filipe Melo, from Chega, also welcomed the fact that “justice and the truth of the facts have been restored” and said he hopes that Eurico Brilhante Dias “draws his conclusions and ultimately the consequences”.
Pedro Filipe Soares said he hoped that just as Brilhante Dias “was very quick to criticize the public square”, he would now also “quickly apologize to the deputies of this Commission of Inquiry and, as a result, also to the Assembly of the Republic for mocking the name of this institution”.
The PS coordinator, Bruno Aragão, believed that the report’s conclusions represent the “normal functioning of the institutions”.
“There were doubts, it was clarified and now we can move on or continue with the essence, as we always said,” he said.
Source: DN
