As for the resources Agência Lusa had access to, both Porto directors understand that “Benfica cannot be considered aggrieved in this crime, therefore it could not have filed a complaint, so the criminal proceedings began with a violation of the rules of legitimacy”.
During the trial, which took place in Lisbon, lawyer Nuno Brandão asked for the acquittal of FC Porto communications director Francisco J. Marques, his constituent, as the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) “did not have the legitimacy” to investigate on the basis of an unjustified complaint.
Nuno Brandão argued this at the time “the offended parties can only be the people who own the email accounts”, and added: “It would be individual people who could file a complaint for unlawful access to their email boxes, they had six months to do that and they didn’t do it.”
In the appeal, Francisco J. Marques, sentenced to a statutory term of one year and ten months of imprisonment, with a suspended sentence for the same period, and Diogo Faria, punished with nine months of imprisonment, with a suspended sentence of one year, were declared that “the disclosure of the emails corresponded to the legitimate exercise of fundamental rights, with protection in the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic, freedom of expression and information”.
‘There was an undeniable public interest supporting the disclosure [dos e-mails]”, the sources refer, adding that “it was on the basis of the same emails that criminal proceedings were opened against Benfica (suspected corruption in arbitration)” and considering that these “reveal well-founded suspicions of actions outside the law, of regulations and ethics, capable of disrupting healthy sports competition, materialized in unjustified offers to sports agents, promiscuity relationships between these agents and even between coaches, referees and players.”
FC Porto’s communications director was convicted of one of six crimes in which he was accused of violating correspondence or telecommunications, and of two of four crimes in which he damaged a legal entity for which he was responsible.
In the same trial, which ended on June 12, Diogo Faria, content director at Porto Canal, was convicted of violating correspondence or telecommunications.
In their appeal, the two directors of FC Porto, who were both acquitted of the crime of unlawful entry, emphasize the fact that the Public Prosecution Service “has not lodged an appeal with regard to any of the acquittals”.
Last week, Benfica, who became an assistant in the trial, appealed the decision, saying Francisco J. Marques and Diogo Faria “should be convicted of all the crimes of which they were accused and convicted”.
The case of the disclosure of emails dates back to 2017 and 2018, where communications between elements related to the Benfica structure and third parties were revealed in the program ‘Universo Porto – da bench’, on the Porto Canal.
Source: DN
