Fourteen of the seventeen defendants linked to a network of eastern citizens accused of human trafficking, which yesterday began to be tried in Beja, retreated into silence. As first consequences, resulted in the afternoon session lasting just half an hour and the two scheduled for today being postponed.
Ion C., absent without justification, which led the president of the Collective of Judges of the Beja Court to issue an arrest warrant to be taken to trial. Four other defendants and one company were not notified, so they were left out of this first phase of the trial, which in total has 51 Defendants.
Dismantled by the Judiciary Police (PJ) in November 2022, the network was controlled by a Romanian couple, Nicosur and Romana, and all defendants are charged with a crime of criminal association, there are then different types of crimes, like human trafficking, money laundering and possession of prohibited weapons.
Eight of those involved are in preventive detention and four are required to remain in their home using electronic surveillance means. (or),
Mariana I. and Nicolai I., mother and son, the first two to speak, rejected “any connection and type of business” with the other defendants, endorsing responsibility for husband and father, now deceased. They assumed they had workers working for them, with signed employment contracts stating “that the days they did not work were deducted and they paid the rent for the hill where they lived”, remataram.
George V., He started by saying he worked for Romica, one of the four with the greatest involvement in the crimes reported to the network, but, after being confronted with documents seized by the PJ, took on “managing” a woman’s company, but the prosecution argues that “it was a ghost and served as a facade”, to cover up the business of his would-be boss.
Tomorrow's morning session begins with the hearing of two inspectors from the PJ's National Counterterrorism Unit, responsible for the mega operation carried out on the day 23 November 2022, where around four hundred operatives participated, in an investigation supervised by the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP) Lisbon, and led on the ground by judge Carlos Alexandre.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
