Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa resigned last week after he was implicated in a corruption case, but it is now being reported that he may have been the victim of a name error from the investigation.
It has emerged that the Prime Minister was not the man sought by the authorities in the current corruption investigation which led to a police raid on the Prime Minister's house, report Euronews and Le Point.
Instead, the authorities were after Minister for the Economy, Antonio Costa Silva, who goes by almost the same name, the Lusitanian Public Prosecutor now admits, according to Euronews.
The mistake was allegedly made in the transcript of the phone tapping that led to the fall of the Portuguese Government.
The Minister for the Economy, Antonio Costa Silva, for his part, pleads innocence and claims not to have been subjected to "any pressure" or to have had the slightest contact with one of the protagonists in the affair, lawyer Diogo Lacerda Machado, writes Le Point.
It does not end there. It would also appear that the phone mentions of the suspected senior government member were only indirect – only hearing the two suspects mention the fact that they will have to "find a way to talk" to the Minister for the Economy.
Also according to Le Point, investigating judge Nuno Dias Costa did not recognise in the Public Prosecutor's file any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the Prime Minister, and he considered that the other documents in the file were "vague" and did not justify the arrest of five suspects.
The judge has now altered the charges, dropping the most serious ones - embezzlement and corruption - and retaining only influence-peddling and obtaining undue advantage in public tender.
