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This Friday, at the entrance to a new trial session, Salgado’s lawyer harshly criticized the decision, in statements broadcast by SIC Notícias. “It is not the defendant who decides to have Alzheimer’s. It was not Dr. Ricardo Salgado who decided to have this disease” nor “to self-limit his right of defense, his ability to make statements, it is Alzheimer’s disease”.
The lawyer said he expects the Courts “to be Courts and not to judge as if they were in a social network, as if they were in a comment box in a tabloid”. “I ask for respect for that. Dr. Ricardo Salgado, over the past seven years, has fought and has been fighting for its defense. Unfortunately, at this moment, what happened happened, it is demonstrated, it is unequivocal”, he added, guaranteeing that the defense will “battle” for the “demonstration of the truth” and for the “preservation of human dignity”.
At the end of the session, Francisco Proença de Carvalho insisted that Alzheimer’s is not a “normal wear and tear of age”, but a disease that leaves people “deprived of their personality”. Therefore, he asked for “respect” again. “I think that deserves everyone’s respect, I’m not talking to the Court. I see many things written and said that are shocking and everything has a limit”, he stressed.
The trial continued this Friday, at the Central Criminal Court in Lisbon, after having been suspended for more than a month. Ricardo Salgado, 77, is responsible for three crimes of breach of trust, but has not yet been heard in court. The next session of the trial takes place on November 28, to hear the last witness listed by the defense.
Ricardo Salgado’s defense claims former banker’s neurological disease
Father Avelino Pereira Alves, one of the defense’s witnesses, described Ricardo Salgado as a “man of integrity”, according to the Morning mail. The 69-year-old parish priest said in court that he has known the former banker for more than 20 years and that they met at mass “almost every Sunday”.
“We were talking about church and family. Man of integrity. Man with rules, with a firm bearing. I lived with him in difficult times. I’ve never run away, a friend doesn’t run away when he needs it most. He wanted to tell me what happened and I didn’t want to know. Friendship is above all,” he said, quoted by Correio da Manhã.
In statements transmitted by RTP3, after leaving the court, Avelino Pereira Alves referred that the situation in which the BES victims were affected is “the suffering it entails”. “He said he had a solution, that they didn’t give him the opportunity, that’s what makes him suffer the most in the process“.
As for the diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, he says that he recognized some difficulties in the dialogue with the former banker, but says he thought that a problem with deafness was at stake. “At one point I asked questions and he kept looking at me. Now they say it was Alzheimer’s, I even thought it was deafness. The wife would then say: ‘Didn’t you hear what the priest said?’
The purpose of the presence of Father Avelino Pereira Alves is to testify about the character of Ricardo Salgado. The priest stated that, being a friend of Salgado, he could not flee “in adversity”. “I don’t put my hands on fire for anyone. I have doubts? I believe in God and even about God I have doubts, let alone men”.
On Monday to Lusa, while the parish priest was being heard, outside the court there was a demonstration by BES victims. The sound of horns and protests could also be heard in the courtroom.
Article updated at 12:30 pm with the statements of Francisco Proença de Carvalho on leaving the Court
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