Rui Pinto is to be transferred to his home country of Portugal. This is a court ruled in Budapest. The “Football Leaks” known whistleblower fears by his own admission his life.
In Hungary detained Whistleblower Rui Pinto is to be extradited to his home country of Portugal. This is the city court held in Budapest, as a spokeswoman confirmed. The delivery is not yet final. The lawyers of the 30-Year-old announced after the ruling immediately to appeal. Pinto, who rocked under the cover name “John” as the source for the revelation platform Football Leaks, the world of football hard, and threatens in Portugal a prison sentence.
The Portuguese had been arrested in mid-January in Budapest. With him ten hard drives had been seized. Most of the data on it, he didn’t shared yet with the media, had Pinto explained a little later in the conversation with the “mirror”, the NDR and the French Online platform “media part”. The data were confidential documents from the international football industry and the Offshore banking.
“Stay strong, Rui Pinto!” Banner at a game between Fortuna Duesseldorf 1895 and VfB Stuttgart
Pinto since his arrest in Budapest under house arrest. The authorities in Hungary had to answer the question of whether Pinto as a Whistleblower can take the special protection for whistle-blowers by the European court of human rights. It was not so. “The request for extradition cannot be rejected,” said judge Judit Csiszar: “It is expected of EU members that follow the same legal Standards.”
In Portugal Pinto is accused of, among other things, “the improper appropriation and dissemination of data, as well as attempted extortion,” which he accepted in part also. The supposed blackmail of the Agency Doyen Sports but this was just a “childish prank”, said Pinto’s lawyer William Bourdon, who has already represented the Whistleblower Edward Snowden.
“I’m not a Hacker”
Pinto himself has declared in court: “I have none of the criminal acts committed of which I am accused.” He never received the money and everything he had done had been in the “public interest”, “corruption in European football” to uncover.
The source of the data retains Pinto. He stresses, however, to be the Only one behind the revelations. “I’m not a Hacker,” said Pinto: “in The end it is about the fact that Whistleblower procedures disclose that the company would otherwise remain hidden: the crimes, abuses, misconduct.”
The multiple world footballer Cristiano Ronaldo, here with his girlfriend on the way to a court appointment, was affected by the revelations
The threat of extradition to Portugal is preparing Pinto, by his own admission. “I’m afraid that if I enter a Portuguese prison, especially one in Lisbon, I don’t get out of there alive, said Pinto in an Interview in January: “The football mafia is everywhere. You want to send the message that no-one with you to create.”
The platform of Football Leaks in 2015 caused a stir. Among the revelations, reports on the tax offense of Superstar Cristiano Ronaldo during his time on the bypass in Spain at Real Madrid and on the Attempts of the top teams Paris St. Germain and Manchester City, Financial Fair Play (FFP) of the European football Union (UEFA).
stu/yy (sid, dpa)