Portugal’s former prime minister Jose Socrates went on trial on Thursday on corruption charges in a long-running case already being dubbed the “trial of the century” in local media.
Socrates, who led the country between 2005 and 2011, is accused of amassing a fortune of more than 34 million euros ($40 million) while he was prime minister.
Prosecutors say the former leader, who is on trial with 18 others, used a childhood friend as a front man in a scheme involving a building conglomerate, one of the country’s biggest banks and a tourism complex in the south.
Socrates is the latest in a string of senior politicians to be embroiled in legal difficulties, though not of the same magnitude.
The country faced a snap election last year after prime minister Antonio Costa stepped down when he was implicated in an influence-peddling probe that saw one of his ministers indicted.