Lisbon, May 9, 2025 (Lusa) - Ricardo Salgado's former right-hand man said on Friday that the former head of the defunct Portuguese BES bank wanted to keep Álvaro Sobrinho at Banco Espírito Santo Angola (BESA) until the end and that he only left the institution because of pressure from Angolan shareholders.
"I always thought that we should have been more radical in our decision [to remove Álvaro Sobrinho from BESA] but Ricardo [Salgado] didn't want to go down that road. Ricardo always stood by Álvaro Sobrinho," said Amílcar Morais Pires, on the second day of his trial in the BESA case in Lisbon, where he faces charges of abuse of trust and fraud.
The Angolan banker (Álvaro Sobrinho) ended up leaving BESA for good on 28 June 2013, more than a year after Amílcar Morais Pires took over the BES subsidiary.
The departure, he added, came after BESA's minority Angolan shareholders decided to end the "institutional guerrilla warfare" that existed between Álvaro Sobrinho and the man who, in an intermediate solution found by Ricardo Salgado, had been appointed his successor on BESA's Executive Committee, Rui Guerra.
The measure, taken in a context in which the Angolan banker refused to report to Amílcar Morais Pires, meant that Álvaro Sobrinho became chairman of the bank's Board of Directors.
"During the first quarter of 2013, Rui Guerra was already in Angola and reported to me [...] that Álvaro Sobrinho continued to make orders as chairman of the Board of Directors that interfered in the sphere of the Executive Committee,’ the 63-year-old economist said today.
This morning, Amílcar Morais Pires also insisted that, in June 2012, he shared with the directors and shareholders the information provided at the time by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that BES's Angolan subsidiary had imbalances and constituted a risk for the Portuguese bank, despite the fact that this was not included in the minutes of the meetings.
The official suspect justified the absence with the fact that the memorandum on which the information was based was "considered confidential", emphasising that "not all issues" dealt with by BES's bodies are included in the minutes.
The warning also aimed to respond to the view expressed by the panel of judges that, in the minutes of that date, Amílcar Morais Pires appeared to be reassuring those present about the situation at BESA and not alerting them to the problems at the Angolan bank.
At issue in this case is the alleged misappropriation, between 2007 and 2012, of funds from a BES loan to BESA in Interbank Money Market (IMM) credit lines and bank overdrafts.
As well as Amílcar Morais Pires, on trial are Ricardo Salgado, 80 and suffering from Alzheimer's, Álvaro Sobrinho, 62, Portuguese-Angolan businessman Helder Bataglia, 78, and former BES director Rui Silveira.
In general, the defendants face charges of abuse of trust, money laundering and fraud and deny committing the offences.
The trial continues this afternoon and on 19 May with the continuation of the cross-examination of Amílcar Morais Pires.
BES went bankrupt in the summer of 2014 and BESA was liquidated the following October.
IB/AYLS // AYLS
Lusa
