(Bloomberg) -- Altice co-founder Armando Pereira is set to recover his passport and regain total freedom to travel, one year after being temporarily detained as part of a probe into alleged corruption affecting the telecommunications company’s Portugal unit.
The bail terms imposed on Pereira by a judge 12 months ago expire on Thursday, Pereira’s lawyer, Pedro Marinho Falcao, told Bloomberg News. This also means that Pereira and others who were temporarily detained as part of the probe will no longer be banned from contacting each other, he said.
The relaxed bail conditions do not extend to the €10 million ($10.9 million) payment he posted in October that allowed him to be released from house arrest, Marinho Falcao said on Thursday. The case remains under investigation, his lawyer said. Pereira hasn’t yet been formally accused of a crime.
A change in bail terms will be the latest milestone in the sprawling investigation opened by Portuguese authorities last July. Pereira, once considered to be the right-hand man of Altice’s billionaire founder Patrick Drahi, is the most prominent target of the probe. He has already denied the prosecutor’s allegations via his lawyer.
Pereira can still be called to make statements after new “elements” are collected, Marinho Falcao said. “After giving statements we will see whether or not the Public Prosecutor’s Office proceeds with the accusation.”
The prosecutor’s office in Lisbon didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request to comment on the probe.
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