LISBON – Computer hacker Rui Pinto, the man behind the Football Leaks website that helped trigger the English Premier League probe into Manchester City’s finances, faces “dire consequences” after having his protected witness status removed, his lawyers said on Oct 2.

Pinto “was informed on Wednesday that the special security programme he has benefited from since August 2020 would end on Oct 10”, his Portuguese lawyers Francisco and Luisa Teixeira da Mota said in a joint statement with his French representatives William Bourdon and Vincent Brengarth.

“In a few days, without having been given a prior hearing as required by law, he would lose the secure, confidential housing assigned to him and be forced to find a new home urgently, with no guarantee that police protection would be maintained,” they continued, describing the move as a “decision with dire consequences”.

“The threats against him are not merely theoretical; he was assaulted in Lisbon last April. His revelations implicated powerful figures with vast resources, and numerous resulting legal proceedings are still ongoing,” they said.

“Abruptly deprived of his protected housing and plunged into extreme precariousness, Rui Pinto is reportedly more vulnerable now than at any time since 2020,” his lawyers added.

The 37-year-old Pinto has been a protected witness since 2020 after agreeing to grant Portuguese authorities access to millions of files gathered before his arrest.

Arrested in Hungary where he was living in January 2019 and subsequently extradited to his home country Portugal, Pinto spent over a year in pre-trial detention before agreeing to cooperate with the authorities by granting them access to the encrypted data in his possession.

Pinto was both a defendant and a protected witness for the Portuguese justice system. He is also cooperating with investigators from other European countries.

During his first trial, the former history student and self-taught computer expert admitted hacking computers to obtain millions of documents that he began publishing online in late 2015.

Passed on to a consortium of European investigative media outlets, this wealth of information exposed questionable practices involving star football players, clubs and agents, subsequently leading to tax adjustments and judicial investigations in several countries.

A Portuguese court handed Pinto a suspended four-year sentence in September 2023 after he was found guilty on counts of attempted extortion, illegal access to data and breach of correspondence. AFP