Former PSD deputy Sérgio Azevedo says he is the target of “character murder”

“CAs a citizen, I only regret that there are character assassinations, which are intolerable in a rule of law”, wrote the former PSD deputy on his Facebook account, reacting to the TVI/CNN report on an alleged exchange of favors between PS and PSD in the preparation of lists for the 2017 municipal elections, in order to guarantee the maintenance of certain Lisbon parishes.

Sérgio Azevedo says he has been targeted in the last seven years in news about the referred process, regarding which he was never called upon to provide any clarification, “not as a witness and much less as a defendant”.

“This news represents a very serious personal, professional and family damage that was only overcome with the presence and help of my family and some friends, to whom I am deeply grateful”, he wrote.

The former deputy added that “at no time” did he have “the right to the most elementary contradictory”, since nothing was asked or requested. “Unfortunately, and without being able to exercise that right, I cannot clarify what I only have knowledge of through third parties”, he lamented.

After remembering that he left political life in 2019, “by personal choice”, Sérgio Azevedo promised that he will defend himself in the proper place, the courts.

“I will not fail to exercise my right to defend my good name and my dignity, but I will not do it in the public square, but in the courts, as I believe in the rule of law that I have always defended”, he assured.

Finally, the deputy denied being “in an uncertain whereabouts”, as described in the report, as he lives “in the same city, in the same parish, in the same house as usual”, in addition to having “the same mobile phone number”, exercising the his “everyday” profession and also use public transport every day.

“Only those who really don’t want to find me can’t find me”, concluded the former social-democratic deputy.

The TVI/CNN report, which cites an investigation by the Public Ministry and the Judiciary Police, involves Sérgio Azevedo and also the current PSD deputy Carlos Eduardo Reis, as well as the current finance and environment ministers, Fernando Medina and Duarte Cordeiro, for alleged actions carried out while they were in the Lisbon Chamber.

The news led Carlos Eduardo Reis to prove himself unavailable to be the “useful idiot” of the party so that two ministers can be overthrown and there be early elections, in a position taken at today’s meeting of the PSD Parliamentary Group.

The investigation includes several emails “with criminal relevance”, according to a PJ inspector in a report from the Tutti Frutti process, underlining the existence of “political agreements between Sérgio Azevedo (from the PSD), Duarte Cordeiro and Fernando Medina (from the PS)” for awarding allowances and placing people “in strategic positions” in the 2017 municipal elections.

Reference is also made to the “issuance of false invoices and agreements with PS officials for awarding public contracts to companies” as well as a “wedge” requested by Luís Filipe Vieira — president of Benfica until 2021 — so that a property owned by his son had exemption from IMI.

Read too: Tutti Frutti. Here is the alleged web of ‘pots’ around Sérgio Azevedo