Ex-banker will learn fate today

The former head of the Banco Espírito Santo Group (GES), Ricardo Salgado will learn today if he is to go to prison over three crimes of breach of trust.

The outcome of the Operation Marques case for the banker will be known at the end of this afternoon at a hearing at Lisbon’s Campus da Justiça, a complex of courts and administrative buildings in the city’s Parque das Nações district.
Ricardo Salgado is being judged for crimes for crimes related to Espírito Santo Enterprises, and the ‘Blue Bag’ scandal at GES.
The court case was dealt with independently unlike the other legal defendants in Operation Marques. This was because the judge, Ivo Rosa at the instruction phase in April 2021 announced that he would separate the cases involving Salgado, Armando Vara, Carlos Santos Silva, João Perna and José Sócrates.
Vara has already been sentenced for money laundering, but the court case against them and Salgado’s former chauffeur Santos Silva had not yet been scheduled.
In April 2021, Judge Ivo Rosa brought Ricardo Salgado to trial for three crimes of breach of trust, although the crime of active corruption of a holder of a political office fell by the way, as did nine cases of money laundering, three of document falsification and three of qualified fraud. Nevertheless, Salgado could face nine years in prison. The banker’s defence is arguing that he is unfit to stand trial or face a custodial sentence as he is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.