In an unusual cameo showing another side of the Sócrates’ corruption case, Portugal’s newspapers have reported on the tirade of insults heaped on the Attorney General Joana Marques Vidal by the politician’s former wife, Sofia Fava. Using Facebook to vent her ire, Fava has called Vidal “a fat ugly cretin”. She was reacting to Vidal’s defence of magistrates who have made light of Sócrates’ incarceration on social media.
Vidal has said that the magistrates were simply enjoying freedom of expression. Indeed, it is unlikely that they will even face disciplinary action – news that set Fava into her torrent of insults, which were later withdrawn.
As is the wont of social media watchers however, the posts have all been ‘saved’ in quick-thinking screenshots, and thus it is clear that beyond the insults of “fat and ugly”, Vidal has also been accused of being “disgusting, complexed”, a follower of the deceased former dictator António Spinola Salazar and “a whore”.
Fava’s comments were withdrawn a little over an hour after she made them, with the admission that her language had been “excessive”.
