Political elite hit by phone-tapping scandal in lead-up to election

LISBON - An illegal phone-tapping scandal embroiling more than 60 politicians and judges has overwhelmed campaigning for Portugal's presidential elections next Monday.

The outgoing socialist President Joao Sampiao and the former socialist Prime Minister Antonio Guterres are among those whose telephone calls are said to have been recorded during unauthorised investigations into a high-profile case of child sex abuse in the country's biggest orphanage.

Sampaio, who has served two terms and will step down, called in a televised address for an urgent and rapid investigation into the phone-tapping allegations.

"Violations of ... private lives, through illegal phone-tapping or other intolerable forms of intrusion in the private lives of the Portuguese cannot be allowed," Sampaio said.

The state prosecutor's office reportedly tapped the telephones of more than 200 people.

It copied the conversations on to five computer disks which were then put into a so-called "Envelope Nine" that was slipped into the case file on the long-running Casa Pia paedophile case, according to Portugal's 24 Horas newspaper.

Such confidential recordings are supposed to be handed to the authorities only on the orders of a judge.

Rumours of widespread phone-tapping flourished throughout the Casa Pia child sex scandal, which reaches to the top of Portugal's political and social elite.

Those on trial since November 2004 over the sexual abuse of minors include a former ambassador, an MP and the country's best-known television presenter.

- INDEPENDENT