The defense of Francisco J. Marques, communications director at FC Porto, assured this Monday that he will appeal against the sentence of one year suspended sentence and 10 months in prison in the case of the disclosure of emails from Benfica.
“We are in the first part, there will be a second part that will be the natural resource for the Court. There may be an extension that will be a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights,” said lawyer Nuno Brandão after reading of the verdict, in the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon.
The collective of judges also imposed a nine-month prison sentence, with a one-year suspended sentence, for violation of correspondence or telecommunications, on Diogo Faria, Porto Canal’s content director, acquitting Júlio Magalhães of all crimes committed on at the time of the facts was director of Porto Canal.
The lawyer admitted that he was speaking on behalf of the defenders of Diogo Faria and Júlio Magalhães and emphasized the fact that the “accusation and verdict had fallen in the great majority”, which he added, “shows that they were clearly inflated”.
“Of course there were two or three allegations that deserved our disagreement”said the lawyer, adding: “I think several things have been recognized in this case, namely the veracity of the information about the content of the emails that have been released. It was also recognized that, apart from one case with which we disagree, most e emails are released without tampering”.
Francisco J. Marques and Diogo Faria, who was sentenced to nine months in prison with a probationary period of one year suspended, will also have to pay damages of 10,000 euros to Luís Filipe Vieira, former president of Benfica, who became an assistant in the process.
“We will see if there will eventually be room for the payment of damages. We will of course appeal and we will challenge this conviction, not least because Mr Luís Filipe Vieira has not filed a complaint, he is not even offended .” in this process,” he said, adding, “All this has been a mega-process, but the mountain has given birth to a mouse”.
On the side of Benfica, assistant in the trial, the lawyer Rui Patrício was positive that there was a convictionand admitted it will consider a possible appeal after review of the verdict.
“Convictions are not measured in months or years. For us it was important that there was a conviction and that what was acknowledged was acknowledged: first it was criminal and unjustified conduct, second there was manipulation of information and third there was a lie”said the lawyer.
João Medeiros, who also represented Benfica, stated that “the conviction satisfies the defense of Benfica’s representatives”. thing is that the corruption story falls to the ground, and that story did”.
“The rivalry is healthy, the rivalry between clubs is healthy and that is what causes the victory. Now the rivalry cannot be at all costs. What this statement confirms is that not everything is worth it,” said João Medeiros.
Francisco J. Marques was sentenced to 10 months in prison for violating correspondence or telecommunications under aggravating circumstances, and another year and two months for violation of a corporate entity, with a statutory penalty of one year and 10 months of equal duration.
Diogo Faria, director of content for Porto Canal, was sentenced to nine months in prison, with a one-year suspended sentence, for violating correspondence or telecommunications.
The defendants Francisco J. Marques and Diogo Faria were also ordered to jointly pay damages of 10,000 euros to Luís Filipe Vieira, former president of Benfica, who became an assistant in the trial.
Júlio Magalhães, who was director of Porto Canal at the time of the facts, was acquitted of all the crimes he was accused of.
The case of the e-mail disclosure dates back to 2017 and 2018, with communication between elements related to the structure of Benfica and third parties revealed in the program ‘Universo Porto – da Benfica’, on Porto Canal, and began to be reviewed on September 16, 2018. 2022.
Source: DN
