Television viewers are already au fait with the rather bizarre declarations by Portugal’s so-called superjudge, Carlos Alexandre, which centred on the fact that he wasn’t a rich man and didn’t expect many people to turn up to his funeral.
For a high-ranking member of the judiciary to give an interview at all is unusual in this country. To bemoan his lot and make oblique allusions to ongoing cases of alleged corruption, even more so.
The incident has already seen one of the many in Alexandre’s judicial sights – former prime minister José Sócrates, suspected of passive corruption, fiscal fraud, money-laundering and the trafficking of influences – come out blasting.
Sócrates claims his accuser showed a “lack of impartiality” in talking about “not having money in accounts held by friends”, and has already instructed his lawyers to lodge a formal complaint.
Now, the superior council of magistrates will sit down and analyse the interview when it meets on September 27.
Given to SIC television, Alexandre stressed that he suspects he is being bugged.
“Sometimes people cannot get in touch with me and the call goes to voice mail when I am in places with full cover. I am not saying it is the secret services. I am not accusing anyone…”
Worrying too is his revelation that he doesn’t even have the qualifications to be a “superjudge” (“I don’t have any books published, I don’t go to conferences, I have no post-graduate degrees”), as he is in charge of so many of the country’s “important” cases into alleged corruption – not least BES, which shows no signs of rapid resolution.
Anyone who did not know better would wonder here whether Alexandre – with his well-known badge of ‘superjudge’ – has simply been ‘set up’ for an eventual archiving of institutional skulduggery.
