"The lawyers declare that their client, Mr. Rui Pinto, assumes responsibility for having delivered, at the end of 2018, to the Platform for the Protection of Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF), a hard drive containing all data related to the recent revelations about the fortune of Isabel dos Santos, her family and all individuals who may be involved in the fraudulent operations committed at the expense of the Angolan state and, eventually, other foreign countries", a note by William Bourdon and Francisco Teixeira da Mota states.
In the statement, the lawyers say that Rui Pinto has sought "to help understand complex operations conducted with the complicity of banks and lawyers who not only impoverish the people and the state of Angola, but may have seriously damaged Portugal's interests".
They also state that Rui Pinto handed over this hard drive, "in fulfillment of what he understands to be a duty of citizenship", and "without any counterpart", after becoming aware of the missions carried out by the PPLAAF organization, "allowing them to use the data as they saw fit".
In the note, the lawyers write that Rui Pinto "is pleased to see that, thanks to the intensive work of the ICIJ consortium of journalists, all the data have been explored, verified, validated and, therefore, headed the disclosures that will necessarily lead to the opening of criminal investigations in many countries, including Portugal".
Rui Pinto's defence also holds that: "proof is provided that without the immense revelations of Luanda Leaks, made possible thanks to our client, the regulatory, police and judicial authorities would have done nothing".
"Thanks to our client, portuguese citizens and the world have access to the truth of an extraordinary system of predation and corruption, which is seriously damaging to Portugal, Angola and other countries", they add.
They also say that "the decisions already taken by the Bank of Portugal, PWC and others to come demonstrate the exceptional importance of the Luanda Leaks revelations".
"The responsibility of the authorities is now to act and open the necessary investigations - already opened in Angola - and at the same time recover large sums of money, but it must be said that it is the same Portuguese authorities that have kept Rui Pinto in prison for almost a year, under the pretext of an attempt at extortion, and that until now, they have only asked for his cooperation with the sole intention of incriminating him," they said.
Rui Pinto's lawyers also pointed that "this collaboration with PPLAAF and ICIJ is exclusively related to the delivery of this hard drive and does not prejudice the historical cooperation that has taken place with the European Investigative Collaborations (EIC) consortium since the first Football Leaks revelations".
