Rui Pinto’s defence hits out at Benfica’s “dramatic fiction” in case | OneFootball

The defense of Rui Pinto reiterated that the author of Football Leaks is being accused of facts for which he has already been tried and criticized the creation of “dramatic fiction” by Benfica in the context of the process.

“The accusation made by the Public Prosecutor’s Office [MP] refers to the time period from 2016 to 2019. In the first trial, the time period from 2015 to 2019 was at issue. The same type of crimes and the same segment of the defendant's life are at stake. The accusation focuses on the same segment of Rui Pinto's life, which was already thoroughly analyzed in the previous process,” emphasized lawyer Luísa Teixeira da Mota in her final arguments.

The defense considered it “shocking and absurd, for a layperson, to accept that someone who has already been tried for the same facts and was in preventive detention, in a media case, is returning years later to court to face the same accusation, under an identical time period,” demanding a “serious reflection.”

“Regarding the 201 crimes of unlawful access, the MP considers that for each alleged violation of an email inbox, there is a crime of unlawful access. Accessing many mailboxes hosted on the same server may constitute several crimes of correspondence violation, but cannot constitute several crimes of unlawful access,” pointed out the lawyer when questioning the number of accusations involved.

Thus, the defense insists that Rui Pinto “cannot be convicted for crimes of unlawful access,” argues that “there is not enough evidence to convict the defendant for the crimes of aggravated correspondence violation,” and claims that the computer damage crimes were “fictionalized to increase the number of crimes” in the accusation, given that the witnesses “did not even feel the access, that is, there was no damage.”

“Benfica claims that they were not five-time champions due to a state of anxiety among the players and the structure. Footballers deal weekly with the pressure of thousands of fans in stadiums or on social media, injuries, and family problems. Now, they want to convince this court that Benfica players did not perform on the field because of this. This is ridiculing the athletes themselves,” criticized the lawyer.

Luísa Teixeira da Mota invoked two old interviews with Rui Vitória, the coach of the ‘reds’ at the time of the events, in which he replied that “it was never a topic of conversation” in the locker room, and also referred to the recent interview of Luís Filipe Vieira, the club’s former president, on TVI, on August 19, where he pointed to a goal conceded in the 90th minute as the cause of losing the championship.

“Benfica had one less point that season compared to the previous season. It was a minimal difference, it didn’t even worsen. This idea that the club collapsed is just dramatic fiction,” she concluded, adding that the club did not lose sponsors.

To conclude, the lawyer qualified Rui Pinto as a whistleblower, arguing that the information disclosed was used by journalistic consortia and brought to light “truths that many did not want to be revealed” to society in general.

“Punishing someone who exposed crimes in an aggravated manner, even obtaining information by illicit means, sends an ambiguous message to society. The system is harsh with those who denounce and tolerant with those who are denounced. This inversion does not serve justice and society. Rui Pinto’s defense does not ask for him to be seen as a hero, victim, or saint. He committed acts that violate criminal law and deserves a legal response. It is only requested that he be judged with balance and justice,” the lawyer concluded.

Rui Pinto is on trial for a total of 241 crimes: 201 of qualified unlawful access, 22 of aggravated correspondence violation, and 18 of computer damage.

In September 2023, he was convicted in the ‘Football Leaks’ case, by the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon, to four years in prison with a suspended sentence, for attempted extortion, aggravated correspondence violation, and unlawful access.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.