Vara denies any involvement in criminal activity.


According to an official, the appeal court upheld the lower court's ruling on the grounds that the statute of limitations does not apply because the crime in question is receiving bribes for an illicit act.


The lower court in July decided that the former Socialist minister be kept under house arrest with an electronic tag, under suspicion of receiving bribes, tax fraud and money laundering, as part of the Operation Marquês investigation, in which a former prime minister, José Sócrates, is also an official suspect.


Vara has since been released from house arrest after paying bail of €300,000, in the wake of a decision by the same court on 8 October.
Both the former minister and his daughte, Bárbara Vara, are suspects in the case. He himself is being investigated for alleged links to the sale of a tourist resort in the Algarve, Valedo Lobo.

Other suspects include a businessman and close friend of Sócrates, Carlos Santos Silva, and his wife, Inês do Posário, the founder of the Lena construction group, Joaquim Barroca, the former motorist of Sócrates, João Perna, the director of Octapharma, a pharmaceuticals company that the former prime minister had worked for, a lawyer, Gonçalo Trindade Ferreira, and another businessman Diogo Gaspar Ferreira.


Prosecutors also want to question and make a formal suspect of yet another businessman, Helder Bataglia, who was also involved in the Vale do Lobo deal and who is said to be in Angola.