The three Navy personnel accused of violating State secrets, in the case of the Portuguese Republic Ship (NRP) Mondego, have been acquitted today, with the court describing the Public Prosecutor’s Office’s accusation as ill-considered.
Presiding judge of the panel, Tânia Gomes, explained that it had not been proven that the three Navy personnel intended to disclose information to the media, nor had it been proven that the aim was to make the technical limitations of the NRP Mondego public – even less that the interests and security of the State had been jeopardised.
The three Navy personnel were accused by the Public Prosecutor’s Office of disclosing confidential information after refusing, along with 10 other personnel, to board the NRP Mondego, in March 2023.
The mission was to ‘observe’ a Russian spy ship as it travelled through Portuguese waters, off Madeira – and the reason for the high-profile mutiny was that the ship’s condition led its crew to fear for their lives if they set out to sea.
The miserable episode (due to the way in which the crew was publicly humiliated) involved the sending of the ship’s condition to the associations of non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel.
This is what the Public Prosecutor’s Office (egged on by naval hierarchy) most objected to.
For the court, it was proven that two of the three personnel created documents using the Mondego’s onboard computer and that these were sent to the associations of non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel – but it was not proven that they had done so “with the purpose of making the ship’s technical limitations public”, stressed judge Gomes.
Furthermore, the information contained in the documents sent by the personnel had not been “classified by a competent authority”, she added, which means that it was not classified as confidential and, therefore, was not covered by State secrecy.
In addition to this case, which came to an end today – although the defence and the Public Prosecutor’s Office can still appeal the first-instance decision – there is another case that is still in the pretrial investigation phase and involves the 13 personnel who refused to carry out a mission to monitor a Russian ship, in the Madeira archipelago.
In this case, which is before the pretrial investigation court, the 13 personnel are accused of insubordination, with the Public Prosecutor’s Office arguing in the indictment that the NRP Mondego “was capable of putting to sea, albeit with some degraded conditions”, including cracks in the deck, an inoperative engine and a malfunction in the engine cooling pump”.
According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, if “conditions made it impossible to carry out the mission, the commander could decide to return to port”, the indictment reads – a suggestion that only weeks later was proved to be rather arch, as the NRP Mondego lost its powers of navigability while on the high seas, and had to wait for a tow back to port.
This isn’t an end to the agony of the Mondego 13, but they will certainly see it as a welcome development.
Source: LUSA