August 10 – Rui Pinto, the Portuguese whistleblower whose string of incriminating revelations shook the footballing world before he was controversially extradited from Hungary to his native Portugal, has been freed from house arrest while remaining under judicial control.
“This has been made possible because he has cooperated with justice,” said his lawyer Francisco Teixeira da Mota.
Pinto is to stand trial on September 4 at the Central Criminal Court in Lisbon on a total of 90 counts.
His revelations, published in Germany’s Spiegel and other European news outlets, have sparked criminal investigations in Belgium, Britain, France, Spain and Switzerland.
Pinto was extradited from Hungary to Portugal last year after being accused of stealing data. His supporters have long claimed that his whistleblowing status should have been protected rather than him be treated as hacker whose actions led to millions of confidential documents being provided to the Football Leaks website and then published by a string of media groups.
In January he was also been named as the source of leaked documents about the alleged business dealings of Africa’s richest woman, Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the former Angolan president.
Under the new judicial controls, Pinto will have to let police know his address and must present himself to them every week.
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