After seeing the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ) having refused the request for “Habeas Corpus” presented by Fernando Belmonte, the defense filed a request seeking to remove the judges who judged the defendant in the 1st instance at the Court of Beja.
The individual was convicted, just like your partner, a single penalty 22 years in prison for the death and robbery of a German couple, occurred on 16 April 2023, at Quinta do Paraíso Janedi, in Baleizão, county Beja.
On 22 October, after appeal by the defendant's defense, the TRE Judges considered that the decision of the 1st instance Judges when validating as evidence, statements made by the defendant during the first judicial interrogation, “without them having been reproduced or read at a trial hearing”, where he remained silent.
Artur Vargues, Edgar Gouveia Valente and José Moreira das Neves, magistrate of relation, declared the “partial nullity of the judgment under appeal”, for using the prohibited valuation of said factuality and others connected with it, “imposing the delivery of a new ruling that excludes the statements of the two defendants as evidence” and as such reconfigures the matter of fact and law.
Not conforming, the defender was admitted to the Beja Court, with a declaration of impediment, aiming that the Collective of Judges that condemned Belmonte, I can't judge him again on repeat, because “the judges had access to the prohibited evidence and made mention of it in the annulled ruling. The illegal evidence to which they had access represents a decisive fact and prevents them from returning to try the defendants.”, justifies the lawyer.
The next step is the assessment of the declaration of impediment of the judges of the Court of Beja and only then will a new date be set for the repeat trial
It is worth remembering that Fernando Belmonte, of 54 year old, and his companion, Monica Lourenço, of 38 year old, were sentenced to a total of 22 years of imprisonment in legal accumulation, and 14 years for each of the crimes of simple homicide and 2 years and 6 months for the crime of qualified theft.
The couple would only be detained by the PJ, in Aljustrel, about a month after the discovery of Jan Otton's bodies, of 79 years and Ilse Ediltraud, of 71 year old, inside the farmhouse they owned in the village of Baleizão.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
