The defense minister will be heard in parliament on Wednesday about the controversy with 13 naval personnel who refused to board a mission on the ship ‘Mondego’ in March and about the alleged delay in the establishment of the cyber defense school.
The first theme was proposed by the Liberal Initiative (IL) after the navy’s failure to accompany a Russian ship to the north of Porto Santo island, in the Madeira archipelago, in March after 13 military personnel refused to board. because they claimed no security conditions.
The episode prompted the Navy to conduct an inspection of the NRP (Ship of the Portuguese Republic) ‘Mondego’, which concluded that the mission was “safely feasible”, and to take disciplinary action against the rebel soldiers, who will meet on Thursday the accusation.
On March 20, the 13 soldiers were due to be heard by the Military Judicial Police (PJM) in the context of a criminal investigation, after participation by the Navy, but the Public Prosecutor’s Office suspended the hearing by decision of the public prosecutor to dismiss the case. analyze. process in more detail. At the time, the Army’s defense accused the Navy of erasing evidence, but the department denied these allegations.
At the end of that month, on March 27, the ‘Mondego’ became embroiled in a new controversy after it aborted another mission in the Selvagens Islands, Madeira, for reasons of “technical order”, which the naval said originated “due to human error”, while the ship is operational.
The second theme of the hearing of Helena Carreiras was proposed by the PSD and justified after “news published in the press”, namely in the Diário de Notícias, that “the creation of the Cyberdefense School will suffer a worrying delay” due to the General Staff General of the Armed Forces (EMGFA) “has decided to open an international public tender”.
“This decision is still surprising as it comes more than three years after the EMGFA started the consultation process with cybersecurity companies, still under the mandate of Admiral Silva Ribeiro, to establish a Cyberdefense School that protects national interests, in this fundamental area of Defence,” reads the request of the Social Democrats.
In parallel with this process, the text continues, “the ‘Cyber Academia and Innovation Hub’ was built a year ago at the Military Academy of the Army to ‘promote education, training and exercises, research and innovation in cyberspace and, in addition, support the development of cybersecurity and cyber defense capabilities”, officially inaugurated on 24 May.
“While there seem to be those who argue that this space, which has not been used for over a year, could also be used as a cyber defense school, the Ministry inexplicably believes this cannot be done,” they add.
For the PSD “this situation is very worrying and could affect the credibility of the Portuguese State with its international partners and jeopardize the development of the plan in the field of Cyberdefense and as such it is important to know the dimension of this problem “.
On May 3, the defense minister responded to the PSD in parliament on the matter, saying: “I don’t think there are any delays, and the existing ones are obviously fixable.”
Source: DN
