The request to the court

José Sócrates, Portugal's former prime minister, asked the Lisbon Central Criminal Court on Friday, 23 October, to look into what he describes as contradictions between two cases. In a written request, which the Lusa news agency said it had accessed, he asked the court to weigh the dismissal of the Parque Escolar inquiry against the indictment in Operação Marquês and to order any conflicts clarified. He also asked that no allegation lacking evidentiary support continue to influence the assessment of his criminal responsibility. The request was addressed to the court where he is currently on trial.

The Parque Escolar inquiry

The Public Prosecutor's Office had dismissed an inquiry opened in 2012 into suspected corruption, economic participation in a business and document forgery at Parque Escolar. Parque Escolar is a former public company created in 2007 by Sócrates's first government to modernise schools. The dismissal was reported on Tuesday, 20 October. Sócrates, who led the government from 2005 to 2011, was not a suspect in that inquiry. In Operação Marquês, however, he is suspected of having received money to benefit the Lena group in public works, including school renovations carried out under the Parque Escolar programme.

Sócrates's argument

Sócrates told the court that the suspicions against him had been repeated as though they were established facts.

“These suspicions were repeated as if they were truths, in a criminal manner seeking to call my honesty into question and damage my reputation.”

He said that with the Parque Escolar investigation now dismissed, the court cannot, or at least should not, ignore the injustice he claims to have suffered. The filing is a request, and no ruling on it is reported in the articles.

The trial so far

Sócrates, who is 69, has been on trial since 3 July 2025 on 22 charges, including three of corruption. Prosecutors allege he received money to favour the Lena group, the Grupo Espírito Santo (GES) and the Vale do Lobo resort in the Algarve. The case has 21 defendants, who have generally denied the 117 economic and financial crimes attributed to them by the Public Prosecutor's Office. The alleged offences took place between 2005 and 2014. The key dates reported so far are shown below. The presiding judge of the panel, Susana Seca, is named in the articles.