The Court of Évora Relationship (THREE) maintained the sentence of six years in prison for each member of a couple, applied in 6 December last year by a Collective of Judges from the Court of Beja, for the co-authorship of a drug trafficking crime.
The decision of the TRE judges was taken on Tuesday dismissing the appeal presented by José Correia's defenses, of 55 year old, and Dina Guerreiro, of 51 year old, residents of Monte do Loendreiro, parish of São Barnabas, municipality of Almodovar, detained at 1 March 2023, after a GNR operation, of seizure 101.415,68 kilograms of cannabis are equivalent to 272.016 doses.
In addition to the drug, were also seized 440 euro cash, greenhouses, scales, vacuum packaging machines and many other materials, intended for all traffic.
This was one of the largest seizures of cannabis in the last decade made by the Beja Territorial Command of the GNR, resulting from the direct cultivation of the narcotic product by traffickers.
During the trial it was proven that on land close to Monte do Loendreiro, the couple prepared a place, with pits and fertilizer, where they installed irrigation systems, for the cultivation of the narcotic, located in one of the rainwater drainage tunnels on the A2, next to a viaduct on the aforementioned highway.
To the magistrates of the Beja Court, the couple “passed†the responsibility to third parties “from whom they had rented for a thousand euros, the land where the drug was cultivatedâ€, individuals who, according to José Correia, he had met in a bar in São Bartolomeu de Messines (Algarve), who said their names were Samuel and Joachim, not fulfilling their identifications.
During the trial sessions, the defendants gave unconvincing explanations about the drug found in several places on Monte, in a warehouse and other annexes and for all the paraphernalia of instruments dedicated to the entire cultivation process, drug drying and packaging.
The couple awaits the TRE ruling in pre-trial detention., him in the Prison Establishment (EP) Beja, and she on Odemira's EP.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
