The PCP secretary-general insisted this Thursday that the prime minister’s explanation of the SIS’s performance was not enlightening and defended a swift clarification as the issue appears to remain “in a haze”.
“It was another chance for the prime minister to supposedly explain himself and I don’t think any of us were clear on what happened,” PCP general secretary Paulo Raimundo said.
Questioned by journalists at the end of a meeting with the management of the Associação Sindical dos Juízes, at the headquarters of the PCP, in Lisbon, Paulo Raimundo was of the opinion that “knowing or not knowing what the procedures were” whereby “the Prime Minister and rack [Serviço de Informações e Segurança] and Minister Galamba and the SIS” is important from a media point of view, but, he countered, “the road to privatization of TAP is the fundamental issue” and to which attention should be drawn.
Paulo Raimundo noted that the PCP is without prejudice to whether the intelligence services acted within the legal framework in recovering a computer allegedly containing confidential documents that was in the possession of the former assistant to the Minister of Infrastructure at the time . when he was relieved of his duties.
The Communist General Secretary said that “there is no doubt that it is necessary to understand the legal framework” of the intelligence services’ performance and that one should “question as much as possible and try to understand” a matter that ” always seems to exist”. remain in a daze”, because if it turns out that illegality was involved, “it has consequences and is very serious”.
Asked how the Communist parliamentary group will vote on initiatives already announced by some political parties to create a commission of inquiry into the actions of the SIS, Paulo Raimundo said he was not aware of the concrete proposals, but , he insisted, “it will not be for the PCP that creates all the conditions to find out the truth as soon as possible”.
“We are not letting any opportunity pass to clarify this issue,” he added, as “the sooner this is resolved”, the sooner it will be possible to “get back to what has consequences in people’s lives”, such as the issue of the privatization of TAP or the problems of access to justice, he illustrated.
During the parliamentary debate on Wednesday, the Prime Minister, António Costa, said that he did not see any form of illegality in the SIS’s action to recover former deputy minister João Galamba’s computer and assured that no member of the government would take any instruction or has given instruction. guidance for the action of that service.
The prime minister believed that the “issues are quite clear” and reiterated that it was about the disappearance of classified documents, stating that he saw “no illegality of any kind” in the actions of the SIS.
“No member of the government has, directly or indirectly, given instructions, orders or directions to the SIS to carry out this action,” he reiterated.
Source: DN
