The Officer Who Told the Prosecutor General That Portugal's Police Chief Lied in Court Has Been Moved to the Training School
David Freitas sent his complaint about Carlos Cabreiro to the Prosecutor General a month before it reached the press. It was reported on 27 August. His transfer order was signed on 28 August, and cites the convenience of service.
One day after the Portuguese press reported that the national director of the Polícia Judiciária had been denounced to the Prosecutor General for allegedly lying in court, the coordinator who made the complaint received a transfer order. David Freitas moves from the PJ's technology prevention and support unit to the force's own training institute, the Instituto de Polícia Judiciária e Ciências Criminais, in Loures. He is due to report there on 7 September.
The transfer was reported by CNN Portugal and confirmed by Observador. The PJ's national directorate justified it as ordinary internal management of personnel, and the despacho itself makes no reference to the complaint. It was signed on 28 August by the deputy national director, Pedro Fonseca, and cites the "superior interest of the Judicial Police" and "convenience of service". The stated purpose of the move is a training mission in criminal investigation and forensic science.
The sequence of dates
The dates are what give the episode its shape. David Freitas sent his information to the Prosecutor General, Amadeu Guerra, roughly a month before it became public; Guerra referred the matter to the Lisbon DIAP. The complaint was reported on 27 August by the weekly Expresso and the channel Now. The transfer order was signed the following day.
Observador reports that inside the force, the fact that the complaint had reached the media is understood as one of the reasons for the move, even though the paperwork does not say so.
What the complaint alleges
The underlying matter goes back to the Football Leaks investigation and the case involving the hacker Rui Pinto and the lawyer Aníbal Pinto, both of whom ended up with suspended sentences. Carlos Cabreiro, now the PJ's national director, is accused of having told that trial that no ambient recordings were made during a surveillance operation covering a meeting at the A5 motorway service area in Oeiras, between the lawyer, the then Doyen chief executive Nélio Lucas, and a collaborator. He is further accused of abuse of power for allegedly ordering an interception that the Ministério Público had refused.
There is a family connection running through it. David Freitas is married to inspector Aida Freitas, one of the officers who covered that meeting. She told the court that she had heard nothing of the conversation and had merely signed an external surveillance report drafted by the inspector coordinating the case. Cabreiro, then heading the cybercrime unit, gave evidence as a witness and criticised her professionalism. She was subsequently made the subject of a criminal case that has not yet concluded.
A separate thread appeared in the Diário da República on Tuesday: a despacho signed by Cabreiro on 25 August annulling a May order that had delegated competences to Pedro Fonseca, on the grounds that it had been "improperly published". In effect, the decision to move Freitas was taken by a deputy director who had just had responsibility for several central areas of the force withdrawn.
What this means for expats
- Nothing here affects casework: this is an internal governance dispute at the top of the PJ, not a change in how crimes are investigated or reported.
- The case behind it: Rui Pinto was acquitted of all 241 counts at his second trial, and the Ministério Público appealed that acquittal in June.
- It is not the only pressure on the force: the Interior Minister, himself a former PJ director, is facing a Court of Auditors trial over his years there.
- Where it goes next: the complaint sits with the Lisbon DIAP, which decides whether to open an inquiry. Nothing obliges it to announce that decision.
