Judge may have opted for the least serious coercive measures.
The eight defendants arrested as part of Operation ‘Ab Initio’ were released this Friday, 20 September, after three days under the custodial measure.
Criminal investigating judge Susana Mão de Ferro opted for the least serious coercive measures, after the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested preventive detention for one of the defendants.
Although the coercive measures applied are not yet known, it is certain that the judge released the defendants today after the suspects remained silent during the first judicial interrogation, speeding up the procedural steps.
The defendants left the Funchal Judicial Court, in the Palace of Justice, by their own means separately, following different routes in order to mislead the media present at the scene.
As part of the ‘AB INITIO’ operation (in English ‘from the beginning’), the president of the Calheta Municipal Council, Carlos Teles, the former regional secretary for Agriculture, Humberto Vasconcelos, the former regional director for Agriculture, Paulo Santos, the president of IASaúde, Bruno Freitas, the businessmen Humberto Drumond and Miguel Nóbrega, and two employees of the Regional Secretariat for Agriculture, Daniela Rodrigues and Cecília Aguiar, were arrested as defendants.
The suspects are suspected of having committed the crimes of economic participation in business, receiving or offering undue advantages, malfeasance and prohibited financing of political parties. According to the Lisbon District Attorney’s Office, the investigation carried out by the National Anti-Corruption Unit and the Madeira Criminal Investigation Department is looking into “contracts awarded by regional public entities, through their representatives, political office holders and employees, to companies controlled by a single individual, as well as to other companies managed by people with whom the individual has friendly relations, in violation of the rules of public tenders”.
As its now known , we could expect to see 20 or more defendants questioned, many linked to the Government.