The majority of 20 accused of “Operation Mirror” of the Judicial Police made statements. The coercive measures are known this afternoon at the Beja Court.
When the twenty defendants detained in “Operation Mirror”, whose case is assigned to the Court of Cuba, arrived yesterday morning at the Beja Court to be heard in the first interrogation, were received by around three dozen family members and workers, who protested discontentedly due to the arrest of their bosses.
According to Lidador Notícias, only five, two men and three women, of the twenty defendants gave statements before a Criminal Investigation Judge (JIC) the Court of Beja, which led to the Public Prosecutor's Office proposing the coercive measures to be applied to the defendants.
Today from 10am, de novo no Court of Cuba, the lawyers will make their arguments and at 5pm the JIC will announce, again at the Beja Court, coercion measures.
Among those detained, there are at least three Portuguese, two men and a woman, the group leader and his right-hand man and the accountant, from whom several high-end vehicles were seized, namely a Porsche, a jaguar, um Mercedes, a BMW and a Ford Raptor van valued at 75 thousand euros.
The group of defendants was distributed across three prisons, the six women having spent the night in the Prison Establishment (EP) Tires (Sintra), seven men stayed at EPBeja and the remaining seven spent the night at EPElvas.
The defendants are accused of 10 crimes, the most serious being criminal association, human trafficking, facilitate illegal immigration, extortion and money laundering.
In addition to the twenty defendants who were present at the first interrogation at the Beja Court,, there are eight more detained in the same operation, but linked to a process that began in Évora.
“Operation Mirror” was carried out on Tuesday by inspectors from the Counter Terrorism Unit (UNCT) of the Judicial Police and focused on the municipalities of Cuba, Ferreira do Alentejo and Vidigueira, having been used more than 480 operational personnel who executed seventy-eight home and non-home search warrants.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
