•Former Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates
Portugal’s former prime minister, Jose Socrates went on trial today on corruption charges in a long-running case already being dubbed the “trial of the century” in local media.
Socrates, who led the country between 2005 and 2011, is accused of amassing a fortune of more than 34 million euros ($40 million) while he was prime minister, reports AFP.
Prosecutors say the former leader, who is on trial with 18 others, used a childhood friend as a front man in a scheme involving a building conglomerate, one of the country’s biggest banks and a tourism complex in the south.
Socrates is the latest in a string of senior politicians to be embroiled in legal difficulties, though not of the same magnitude.
The country faced a snap election last year after prime minister Antonio Costa stepped down when he was implicated in an influence-peddling probe that saw one of his ministers indicted.
He was succeeded as Socialist party leader by Pedro Nunes Santos, who had already been forced to resign as a government minister in 2022 after being implicated in an earlier scandal.
Socrates was first arrested a decade ago and has long rejected the allegations against him.
“I fought for years against this trial because that is my right,” he told reporters outside court on Thursday, adding that it was up to prosecutors to prove the case.
The trial is expected to last several months, with the prosecution alone set to call some 200 witnesses.
