A complaint over statements by a dismissed official

Interior Minister Luís Neves has announced a criminal complaint against Ricardo Carrilho, who served as secretary-general of the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI) from January 2025 until Neves dismissed him on Monday, 12 October. Expresso first reported the move, and the ministry then confirmed it to Lusa, saying much of Carrilho's statements contained falsehoods. The ministry's statement said:

“Much of these statements contain gross falsehoods, slanderous and defamatory content, as well as violations of functional duties.”

The ministry added that criminal complaints would also be filed, even though Carrilho has already left office.

The SIRESP allegations

Carrilho called his dismissal "an act of retaliation" and accused Neves of "illegitimate pressure" and "a suffocating political interference". In an interview published on Friday in the weekly Nascer do Sol, he claimed that the minister had mentioned the Construbarcelos construction firm to him well before the scandal broke. According to Carrilho, the name came up in a conversation about dozens of police stations and posts for the PSP and GNR that were at different stages of works, and Neves said he knew firms from his time at the Judicial Police (PJ). Carrilho said he had never heard of the company among the hundreds of construction firms he dealt with.

Carrilho also said the DST group, in a consortium with SolMaior, was to be chosen to supply communications to parishes and municipalities through Starlink, and that he refused the choice and demanded a public tender. DST/SolMaior went on to win a 4.5 million euro MAI tender to reinforce the SIRESP communications network. Carrilho conceded he has no proof.

“I cannot prove this.”

He added that he could not rule out that the minister's earlier meeting with the company's owners, and his prior sight of the tender specifications, had shaped the price DST bid. Carrilho further claimed that the company running SIRESP receives about 26 million euros a year in compensation "without any oversight".

The minister's response

Speaking to reporters in Lisbon on Friday, on the sidelines of an international meeting of judges, Neves said the swearing-in of the new secretary-general, Nuno Parreira da Silva, had made the difference clear.

“At the swearing-in of the new secretary-general, it became absolutely clear what a public servant should be and what they should not be.”

Neves said he was running the ministry "with a lot of calm", that results were starting to show, and he praised the work SIRESP had done this year. He said the revision of the road code was in the final stretch before approval and that a road safety strategy and action plan would be ready "within days". A month earlier, on 16 September, he had made the same promise about the strategy during a parliamentary debate on the 2025 Annual Internal Security Report (RASI), and it has not yet gone to the Council of Ministers. He also said he was working with the finance minister on the statutes of the security forces.

Wider political pressure

The dispute is spilling into the courts and into parliament. A separate matter involving a Tribunal de Contas case and a legislative change that André Ventura considers could benefit the minister is also drawing attention. Neves said he has total availability to clarify these matters, including in parliament.