Portugal Halts Decision to Remove Football Leaks Founder From Witness Protection
Portugal’s officials will allow the Portuguese computer hacker to stay within the witness protection scheme. Their authorities suspended an earlier decision to terminate that status. The hacker provided documents that played a key role in launching the Premier League investigation into Manchester City.
Football Leaks founder Rui Pinto had been scheduled to leave the protection programme on Saturday. He had argued before that the ruling placed him in a “life-threatening situation”.
Pinto, aged 37, released a large batch of confidential football files. These materials included emails and financial records connected to the English Premier League club.
In 2018, he gave similar documents to German publication Der Spiegel. The magazine used the material for reports on City’s finances and suspected financial fair play rule breaches.
The Premier League recently found the club guilty of all charges concerning violations of financial regulations between the 2009-10 and 2017-18 seasons. City has lodged an appeal against the verdict.
Pinto entered Portugal’s witness protection programme in 2020. This followed his agreement to assist authorities and share details gathered during the Football Leaks operation.
However, in a statement on Friday Portugal’s Ministry of Justice announced it would reverse the choice to drop Pinto from witness protection, at least for now. The special security programmes commission, which manages the scheme, failed to properly “notify” Pinto of the reasons for termination or offer him a chance to contest the outcome.
Pinto now has a 10-day window to review a risk assessment from the special security programmes commission. That assessment suggests the threat to his safety remains low.
He posted on X to thank Portugal’s Justice Minister, Rita Alarcao Judice. Pinto claimed the commission’s first decision broke the law and represented a “manifest abuse of power”.
Pinto identifies as a whistleblower, though Portuguese courts convicted him of crimes including illegal data access and attempted extortion. He received a four-year suspended sentence.
His first trial in 2020 featured heightened security, and Pinto wore a bulletproof vest.
Earlier this year, a court found him not guilty of 241 counts of illegally accessing email accounts belonging to various Portuguese sports bodies, including Benfica.