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Portugal's former Socialist leader to remain in preventative detention

Xinhua, February 25, 2015 Adjust font size:

Portugal's former prime minister and Socialist leader Jose Socrates and his longtime friend Carlos Santos Silva, will remain in preventive detention, Portuguese Lusa News Agency revealed on Tuesday.

The 57-year-old Socrates, who governed from 2005 to 2011, and Santos Silva were detained in November in a tax fraud and money laundering investigation.

Socrates was driven from his cell in Evora on Tuesday, south Portugal, to Lisbon, where he was questioned for five hours at the Bureau of Investigation and Prosecution.

He will remain in preventive custody for at least three more months.

Joao Perna, Socrates' ex-motorist, was under house arrest since December and was released on Tuesday, according to Lusa, but is banned from travelling abroad and from contacting other defendants.

Socrates helped negotiate the 78-billion-euro (about 89 billion U.S. dollars) bailout program the country signed in 2011 with its international lenders, the European Central Bank, the the International Monetary Fund and the European Commission.

He moved to Paris in 2011 when he lost the elections, which brought the current central-right government to office. Endit