Sawt Falasteen - Court to deliver verdict on hacker behind biggest leak in football history

It was the biggest information leak in sports history and sparked criminal investigations in Belgium, Britain, France, Spain and Switzerland.

The verdict, which has been postponed several times, was due to be delivered at a hearing in Lisbon starting at 2:30 pm (1330 GMT).

Pinto, 34, is charged with 89 hacking offences, and with attempted extortion, a crime punishable in Portugal by between two and 10 years in prison.

He argues he is a whistleblower, whose actions exposed underhand dealings involving top football stars, clubs and agents.

Between 2015 and 2018, he shared 18.6 million documents on the internet and with a consortium of European newspapers, which published details.

The revelations shook the football world.

They included the salaries of Lionel Messi and Neymar, an accusation of rape against Cristiano Ronaldo, alleged financial sleight of hand at Manchester City and ethnic profiling at Paris Saint Germain.

- Defendant and witness -

Pinto is both a defendant and a protected witness in Portugal.

When his trial began in September 2020, Pinto told the court he had been shocked by what he had discovered and was proud of bringing it to public knowledge.

But he has admitted he used illegal means to obtain documents.

His alleged victims include top Portuguese football club Sporting Lisbon, the Portuguese Football Federation, lawyers, magistrates and Doyen Sports -- a Malta-based investment fund run by Kazakh-Turkish oligarchs.

Pinto was arrested in Hungary in 2019 and extradited to Portugal, where he spent a year behind bars before agreeing to cooperate with the Portuguese authorities on other cases, giving them access to encrypted documents he had obtained.

The French authorities have also sought his cooperation over the "Luanda Leaks", a release of 715,000 documents providing compromising information on Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos, daughter of former president Jose Eduardo dos Santos.

Dos Santos, once the richest woman in Africa, has faced several court cases on charges she syphoned billions of dollars from Angolan state companies during her father's four decades in office.

O.Farraj--SF-PST