“The public prosecutor’s office is only not closing the inquiry because it does not want to,” said lawyers João Araújo and Pedro Delille in a statement issued late last week.
“Because it has no facts and because all the evidence it has calls for the immediate shelving [of the case], which is the last thing that it wants to recognise.”
According to the lawyers, they intend to “counter and ensure that all these abuses of Portuguese and international jurisdictions are scrutinised, by all means in law”.
Sócrates was prime minister for a total of six years, heading two Socialist governments from 2005 to 2011.
He was detained at Lisbon airport in November of 2014 on his return from a lengthy stay in Paris, and subsequently held on remand in prison before being transferred to house arrest last September, and finally released on bail a month later.