Salgado was a “compulsive liar” and “tried to bribe Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa” court hears

 In Banks, BES GES, Justice, News

Former GES boss Ricardo Salgado was a “compulsive liar” and tried to bribe lawyer Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa (Now Portugal’s President) with legal work, a Lisbon court has heard.

The former and now deceased company entrepreneur Pedro Queiroz Pereira, who headed Semapa, an investment holding company, said that ex-banker Ricardo Salgado was a “compulsive liar” , “capable of killing his mother and his father” to achieve his aims, and saying that a “white piece of paper was black”.

This is what emerged on the fourth day of the trial of the former President of the Espírito Santo Group (GES) under whose tenure a once well-respected bank, Banco Espírito Santo, collapsed leaving a trail of debts calculated at anywhere between €8Bn and €18Bn depending on the sources consulted.

The day started with a hearing of the recording evidence from businessman Pedro Queiroz Pereira, who died in August 2018, explaining the privatisation process of BES in the 1980s.

“When GES was privatised, it did so with many financial difficulties,” said Queiroz Pereira in July 2018.

The former Semapa leader stressed that Ricardo Salgado, the defendant in the case, had good and bad characteristics. “Among the good ones: he is an extraordinarily hard-working person; among the bad ones: he is inordinately ambitious, capable of killing his father and mother, and a compulsive liar,” he said. According to Pedro Queiroz Pereira, the former BES boss was able to claim that a sheet of white paper is black, “he’s sick (in the head),” he added.

Pedro Queiroz Pereira also explained that the other managers of the Espírito Santo Group raised no objections to Ricardo Salgado’s decisions. “No one dared. He was the only one capable of ordering the group around.”

“No one dared to say anything. I was independent and the only one who did and I said: “He is able to come here and tell you that this white sheet is black and leave convinced that he had convinced you that it was true. It’s quite amazing, ”he said.

Regarding the now deceased António Ricciardi, the former head of Banco Espírito Santo Investments, the former leader of Semapa emphasised that his continuity as chairman was “completely convenient for Ricardo Salgado to do whatever he wanted at BES”.

The businessman also accused Ricardo Salgado of bribing Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa by delivering legal work from BES to the former partner of the current President of the Republic. “Dr. Salgado did the following: he takes it from the Legal Department and has it delivered to Dr. Rita Amaral Cabral, who has a law firm”.

“Why? To patch up the (his) relationship with Professor Rebelo de Sousa. Regarding, for example, the office of Dr. Rita Amaral Cabral, more than half or 60% of the work awarded came from BES. It was a way to buy Professor Rebelo de Sousa.”

At the 2018 hearing, Pedro Queiroz Pereira also explained that he knew things were “bad” at the bank when he attended one of the meetings of the GES superior board in December, 2012. At that time, BES was purchasing Semapa shares.

The businessman also revealed that he only went to the Bank of Portugal with the documents “a month or two later” because he was “always expecting” that BES would back down in the attempt to control its (Semapa’s) companies. “I am not exactly a friend of Ricardo Salgado, but I am a friend of other Espírito Santos and I know that they are not at the heart of the issue… I tried for a while not to use the figures and things I had,” he said.

He also stressed that what “upset him the most” was when GES discreetly tried to buy shares in an attempt to control Cimigest. “They (GES) were buying my shareholders and they had no money,” he says. The former Semapa head also testified that he asked the Luxembourg court for a judicial inquiry into the accounts of Espírito Santo Control in 2013.

The case continues…

Photo:

MARIO CRUZ / LUSA
Copyright:
© 2011 LUSA – Agência de Notícias de Portugal, S.A.