(Exclusive) Beja: Lawyer arrested for inspectors PJ. Concerned the possible trafficking in persons.
Hugo Machado, lawyer with an office in Beja, was yesterday arrested by inspectors of the National Counter Terrorism Unit (UNCT) the Judicial Police (PJ), for eventual human trafficking.
Six inspectors UNCT, accompanied by a judge of the Court of Beja and a representative of the Bar Association, made first search at the Chambers of, located on Valley Street, in Beja, where the defendant constituted and then at home, followed detention.
Men's PJ began searching the barrister's office to 10,30 hours, from where they left four hours and a half later, accompanied by the accused and carrying various documents seized. Then headed the lawyer's house that left about the 16,30 hours taking with Hugo Machado (shirt with red and blue squares and marked with a circle), with the status of detention in order to be present tomorrow for the first court hearing.
Has learned the Lidador News (LN) concerned is a process that investigates, since December 2015, trafficking in persons, titrated by the Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DIAP)-4Th Section of the Public Prosecutor (MP) de Sintra, which has four Romanian citizens as defendants.
The LN know that the process resulted in the extraction of a certificate of another process also directed by the 4th section of DIAP Sintra, in collaboration of UNCT, that led to the operation “Tightrope”, which led to the arrest of eighteen people, thirteen men and five women.
The over 30 searches conducted throughout the morning of the day 17 November 2015, mainly aimed at the houses in which the various members of the group lived and others where the victims were housed.
Police carried out searches in various parts of the territory, but especially in the West zone, specifically in Obidos and Ericeira, on the Alentejo coast, particularly in Santiago do Cacém, Vila Nova de Milfontes, Odemira and Sao Teotonio, and still in Serpa and Gorda.
In the town of Beja county were arrested, three Romanian citizens and Portuguese, natural and resident, the only one of eighteen who escaped custody.
Hugo Machado is a lawyer who has defended the Court of Beja, several cases involving Romanian citizens arrested and accused of that Eastern country citizens trafficking, who came to Wyoming to pick olives.
Besides, the barrister would be responsible for the preparation of employment contracts between temporary employment agencies, managed by Romanian employers and workers.
In March of this year, the Beja MP filed a lawsuit that ran against Hugo Machado, in which he was charged with two counts of trafficking and two functions theft crimes.
The procedures resulted in two certificates withdrawn by judges VÃtor Maneta and Ana Batista, during the trial of two Romanian clan accused of trafficking in persons, occurred in June and December 2014, no Tribunal e Beja.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
