Two judges of the Court of Beja ask the Court of Appeal of Évora, excuse to judge the seven GNR's military from the post of V.N.Milfontes, accused of various crimes, including kidnapping of foreign workers.
Two judges who preside over the Collective Court of the Central Criminal Court of Beja have entered the Court of Appeal of Évora with a case in which they present the excuse of judging the seven GNR soldiers from the Vila Nova de Milfontes post, Territorial Detachment of Odemira (DTO), accused of 33 crimes, among which kidnapping, offenses to qualified physical integrity and abuse of power.
The judges' request is related to the fact that they tried and sentenced in July 2020, five DTO soldiers, three of them are repeat offenders in this new process, Reuben Candeias, Nelson Lima and João Lopes, after being involved in assaults on Indian nationals, in 2018.
The magistrates in question are considered to be the most reputable of the courts in the Comarca de Beja and intend to maintain their exemption from the defendants and that they cannot be the target of any incident raised by the defense lawyers..
The TRE Appellate Judges will rule on the request of the two magistrates and must accept the same, being replaced within the Central Civil and Criminal Court of Beja, the third magistrate that composes the Collective must be appointed holder of the process. In case of need to complete the trio, the President of the District may appeal to a magistrate of the Local Criminal Court. Only after the assessment of the case by the TRE and the appointment of the presiding judge of the Panel of Judges, trial date will be set.
It is recalled that a judge of the 1st Instance of the Court of Odemira decided on the last day 10 March bring to trial the seven military, whose case began to be investigated by the Judiciary Police (PJ) de Setúbal following the arrest of the military involved in the previous case.
The case has already been filed in the Beja Court, where cases involving a panel of judges are judged, and trial start date will only be set after the TRE's decision is known, to the apology of the two judges.
It is recalled that this case was revealed by Lidador NotÃcias (LN), in 22 September 2020, when he realized that four soldiers, two of whom were convicted in the previous assault on Indian immigrants, had been constituted arguidos by the PJ. The seven soldiers were suspended from duty in January this year by Francisca Van Dunem., then Minister of Internal Affairs.
The accused and the crimes
Rúben Candeias is accused of five crimes of offense to physical integrity, four of abuse of power and one of kidnapping. Nelson Lima, Diogo Ribeiro and Nuno Andrade will be tried for one crime of abuse of power and four of offense to physical integrity, João Lopes for three crimes: abuse of power, offense to physical integrity and kidnapping. Finally Carlos Figueiredo and Paulo Cunha will be tried for a crime of abuse of power and another of offense to physical integrity.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
