Chega has denied that the break-in at party leader André Ventura’s parliamentary office was staged, after MPs from other parties questioned the sequence of events on the morning it was found.
Party sources consulted by Brussels Signal said a cleaner began her shift shortly before 7am on July 28 and found the door of the office open and the room disturbed. She alerted parliamentary security, provided by the National Republican Guard (GNR).
Francisco Gomes, a Chega MP for Madeira, reached the Assembly of the Republic at about the same time. He was collecting equipment to film a social media video in the party’s group room, which sits beside Ventura’s office.
On passing the office he found the door open, officers already there and papers across the floor, the sources said. He asked the guard for permission to record the scene to alert Ventura, and that footage was later circulated.
Doubts surfaced through the day. MPs from other parties asked why Gomes had come to parliament so early during the summer recess and why the office had been left unlocked overnight if it held sensitive material.
Socialist MP José Carlos Barbosa took those corridor conversations onto social media, according to the Observador.
The sources said Gomes was known for arriving early every day and described the staging suggestion as a troubling way to cover the case.
Ventura has also rejected the idea that the episode was arranged. He was the last person to leave the office on the evening of July 27, according to SIC Notícias, which reported that overnight security rounds picked up no disturbance and that the building has cameras outside but none in its corridors.
The Judicial Police (PJ) has taken fingerprints and asked parliament for records of entries and exits covering the night of July 27 and the following morning, the Observador reported. Its National Counter-Terrorism Unit is leading the case.
Ventura said documents and two USB drives had gone missing, among them material for the inquiry Chega wants to force into interior minister Luís Neves and older papers relating to Prime Minister Luís Montenegro’s office. SIC reported that he did not pass the detail about the missing drive to investigators.
Chega said it would wait for the outcome of the police work before deciding on any further step.
