Ricardo Salgado, the "Dono Disto Tudo" of the Espírito Santo clan and former president of Banco Espírito Santo is now allowed out and about.
Today his terms of detention were eased from house arrest to the same degree of freedom as former Prime Minister José Sócrates; they may leave their houses, travel within Portugal but are not allowed to go abroad, or talk to or contact in any way those involved in their cases.
The former 'Master of all he Surveys' has the additional annoyance of having to stump up €3 million for the privilege of going out and about while awaiting formal charges in the ‘Universo Espírito Santo’ inquiry.
The Attorney General's Office announced the news today and Ricardo Salgado said he had no comment to make.
Salgado has been under house arrest since July 2, 2014 and must use the same house as his base until he is called to face criminal charges ranging from money laundering to falsifying documents, and much in between.
Comments
I'm sure that won't be a problem. He'll have it laying around somewhere.
Being freed from house arrest brings that he's no longer safe from all the angry folks who are after him. He may have a sleepless night or two......
This is meaningless as all Portugal watchers will know.
If this is to be taken seriously, and remember that we are in Portugal so everything for the elite is still flexible - there is an obvious issue here for Ricky S. if, as Socrates maintains, in his case he has no idea of the specific charges against him and therefore who exactly is also involved.
What if some low life ex-BES bank manager has found God and is spilling the beans on what he was forced to do at BES? The horrors. And Ricky.S not knowing this - gets chatting to him on the golf course? Or in the Lodge?
Anyway the universal defence, as we have already heard often times bandied about, will always be "Your honour is picking on me. We were all doing this at that time (ie last week/month/year). It was the routine and I would have been disloyal to the rest of the lads to have been doing anything different"