A COURT IN Portugal on Monday convicted the hacker Rui Pinto over his “Football Leaks” revelations that exposed dodgy dealings in international football, sentencing him to a suspended four-year prison term.
The Lisbon court convicted him on five counts of “illegitimate access” to IT systems and three counts of “correspondence violations”, along with the attempted extortion against the investment fund Doyen Sports. Prosecutors alleged that Pinto sought between 500,000 to one million euros from the head of Doyen Sports, Nelio Lucas, in order to stop publishing compromising documents.Between 2015 and 2018, Pinto shared 18.6 million documents on the internet and with a consortium of European newspapers, which published details of the revelations that shook the football world.
Portuguese authorities accused Pinto of accessing the computer systems of targets including the state and Lisbon’s Sporting football club. “This ruling recognises that there was a public service” in the release, Pinto’s lawyer told journalists after the trial, noting that Pinto would not serve any time behind bars.