Lisbon Court of Appeal orders new review of PAN emails deletion case
The Lisbon Court of Appeal has determined that the case concerning the alleged deletion of PAN emails should be sent back for reconsideration. The defendants Cristina Rodrigues and Sara Fernandes had been acquitted at first instance.
Court of Appeal orders new review of acquittal in PAN emails case
The Lisbon Court of Appeal has determined that the case related to the alleged deletion of emails from the Legal Action Department of PAN — People Animals Nature should be sent back to the lower court, confirmed cnnportugal.iol.pt. The decision follows appeals filed by the Public Prosecutor's Office and by the party itself.
At first instance, the defendants Cristina Rodrigues and Sara Fernandes had been acquitted of the crimes of computer damage and unauthorised access, as well as of the civil compensation claim filed by PAN.
The Court of Appeal considered, however, that the sentence had not adequately substantiated the exclusion of certain digital evidence. The judges believed that the original court should have explained in more concrete terms the reasons why it considered this evidence invalid.
The Court of Appeal judges did not conclude that the defendants were guilty, but identified deficiencies in the assessment and substantiation of the evidence that prevent the maintenance of the decision as it was made. The case now returns to the original court for a new review of the issues identified in the ruling.
At the centre of this case is a "computer blackout" affecting the emails of PAN leaders, which occurred in 2020, when Cristina Rodrigues was still a party deputy. According to the Public Prosecutor's accusation, "the defendants acted deliberately, freely and consciously, in accordance with a plan previously drawn up, with the objective of preventing PAN and its members from accessing the contents of the party's email messages".
The Public Prosecutor's statement further states that "the defendants removed thousands of email messages from the aforementioned message box, which they knew they had no authorisation to do", adding that "the defendants aimed — and succeeded — in preventing the PAN party from continuing its political activity".
In the final submissions, the Public Prosecutor's Office did not request a specific penalty, having considered that "it is not credible that someone resigns from membership at 10:00 in the morning of one day and is making alterations to a file at 16:00 the previous day". The Public Prosecutor argued that it was sufficient to resort to "some common sense" to "conclude, without great leaps of reasoning, that there was a massive change of directories and then a delete operation".
Source: Google News PT — Crime (pt)