Crime of disclosure of secrets

The National Court (AN) analyzed a quite striking case, involving an advisor to a political office who stole the mobile phone in a public place. Inside the phone, there were very sensitive material , intimate photos, bank data, private conversations, and internal party documents related to parliamentary activity. Some time later, someone anonymously sent to a media group the mobile phone's memory card. Two journalists downloaded everything, reviewed the files, and made a complete copy . In the end, the group's president decided not to publish anything and informed the politician , who accessed the content and kept the card for a while without informing the owner, until returning it to her.

The situation became more complicated when those journalists handed over a copy the accused, who was police commissioner and carried out "intelligence" tasks (handling sources and gathering information). He had no assigned investigation on that party or its leaders, and also did not report to his superiors . According to the judgment, the commissioner used that material and passed it on to journalists he trusted to publish information aimed at discrediting the party and its general secretary. Even after retiring, those publications continued. During a search at his home , the police found a hard drive and USB drives with information that matched that of the stolen card.

In the trial, the journalists were initially accused as well, but the plaintiffs withdrew the accusation and forgave them , and the Prosecutor also dropped the charges against them, so the process continued only against the commissioner. The defense tried to annul proceedings for various reasons (jurisdiction, chain of custody, digital authenticity, etc.), but the Court rejected it. The court found proven the origin of the material (including the "hash" match) and concluded that there was a crime of discovery and disclosure of secrets committed by a public official (for taking advantage of his position to access and disseminate private information without authorization). Although the mitigating factor of undue delays was considered (about 10 years had passed), he was sentenced to prison, a fine, disqualification, and to compensate the plaintiffs, with the State being held subsidiarily liable for abnormal exercise of public functions.

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