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A full day of hearings, some new findings, a refusal and a resignation request. The third passage by the Parliament of the Chief of the Defense Staff (CEME) because of the theft of Tancos has brought more confusion to the subject and more questions from the point of view of the PSD and the CDS . So, instead of assuming that they already want an investigative commission, the centrists again ask for the resignation of the general and the presence of the defense minister in parliament to clarify the reasons for which he assured the country that all the material had been recovered,
Although, ultimately, General Rovisco Duarte sighed that he did not know what he was doing there – "I do not know exactly what I'm doing here nothing happens that justifies it. "agreeing with Socialist Ascenso Simões that nothing new had been said, the truth is that at least he was direct in two issues: he refused the release of the list of salvaged materials to the deputies, alleging that the latter is in the secret of justice; and stated that "the military has never given assurance that the material found was exactly the same as the stolen material."
And he did not do it, he justified, because it would be a "violation of the secrecy of justice", and because "he finally called for the obtaining of evidence "by the investigation. Moreover, the army will not even know what documents it keeps since October in the military field of Santa Margarida. And why? General Rovisco Duarte explained that the army "does not have the legitimacy to make expertise on the material, indispensable to accurately identify any discrepancies" and to confirm whether there is more or less less material compared to the list of missing objects. Because "the concrete order" that the army received was "not to move," he assured, without saying who or when that order was. And the only known date of this kind is that of June 18 of this year, the self-seizure of material prepared by the Judicial Police and classified as "confidential".
On this episode, Rovisco Duarte also said at one point that the army had made two sergeants available for "primary identification" "of the material, to see if it was" trapped "or could be manipulated and taken to Santa Margarida.
The CEME and the Secretaries General of Homeland Security and Secrets were summoned before the Defense Committee to explain if there is a missing fact de facto that has not yet been found, as reported by Expresso for weeks, citing a report of the prosecution that spoke of explosives, grenades, tear gas and grenades. 39; a trigger of decompression yet to be found – this could call into question the security of the country.
Rovisco Duarte said that the army "is the main interested in the conclusion of the investigation", talked about punishment in internal investigations, investments of 4.3 million euros in security and surveillance systems, and operation Tróia Plan 17 which emptied the warehouses of Tancos in October and distributed more than 1170 tons of several spaces of the Armed Forces. It was also at that time that a box of 1450 ammunition cartridges of 1450 was missing from the list of missing materials and that one could wonder if any other weapons could be in some uncertainty. The last inventory of Tancos warehouses was done in January 2017, six months before the burglary.
"Tancos was a tragedy for the army, Tancos can no longer exist," said the general at one point, admitting the collateral damage that the episode had in credibility from the institution and have been referred by most parties. The PSD and the CDS criticized the mistakes of the protagonists: the defense minister justified his assurances that everything had been found with the statements of the CEME, which in turn would have been based on a list of the judicial police. The PSD wants the "political and operational responsibilities" to be clarified, the CDS says that the CEME "is not able" to occupy his position, but both, at the end of the year. hearing, referred the case back to the investigating committee. Even if it is a political decision of "greatest importance" that no committee member has the power to decide, the decision is made by Rui Rio and Assunção Cristas.
The blog João Vasconcelos wants to know if Rovisco Duarte admits to having resigned at the end of the case, but the answer was a "no" round – because the army did "everything in his power" and layoffs "do not solve everything."
If the judicial investigation, and the (CEME), not to mention the material recovered, the same thing had already occurred in the morning at the hearings of the leaders of the Internal Security System (ISS) and the Information System of the Portuguese Republic (SIRP). Both refused to answer a series of direct questions about the case, such as the relationship between the police, the existence of lists and their contents. But they also took the same footing in the assessment: the Coordination Unit against Terrorism (Ucat) has not, for the time being, nor since the theft of Tancos' data "or" objective evidence "that would jeopardize the security of the country. They rejected the thesis of a possible "social alarm" or "danger" and, as a result, Portugal maintains a "moderate threat level".
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