Defendant, in custody, the “Operation Mirror”, trafficking in persons, loses appeal at the Évora Court of Appeal.
The Court of Évora Relationship (THREE) considered the appeal presented by Ileana Mezo unfounded, who with her husband are identified as the leaders of the human trafficking network dismantled following “Operation Mirror” in the municipality of Cuba last November.
In the document, the defendant raised an incident of refusal, asking for the removal of judge Helena Marques from the case, the Criminal Investigation Judge of the case being carried out by the Cuban Public Ministry.
Ileana Mezo claimed that in 16 November 2023, five days before being arrested again, the magistrate had convicted her of the crime of aiding illegal immigration, a prison sentence of 2 years and 8 months, suspended for three years, in condition to pay 9.000 euros in favor of the Superior Council for Refugees.
In the appeal, Ileana Mezo argued that the acts carried out by the judge in the process resulting from “Operation Mirror” should be considered null and that “the judge should be considered impeded, its replacement ordered, the nullity of all procedural acts subsequent to the replacement being declared null and void” and as such, the coercion measure of preventive detention applied to the defendant was annulled.
Helena Marques works in the Court of Generic Competence of Cuba, where the sentencing and hearing process took place in the first interrogation of “Operation mirror” where the preventive detention of Ileana Mezo was ordered.
In response to TRE, the judge began by justifying that she began her duties two months before the trial and the inquiry into the second case, “not knowing any of the procedural subjects of the case, including the defendant”, adding that she is the only judge of the Cuban Court, “it is not uncommon to have to judge the same citizens in different cases, even for crimes of an identical nature.”, finished.
The TRE Judges considered that “the distrust regarding the impartiality of the judge, are only likely to lead to refusal when objectively considered”, which they understood had not been verified and therefore considered the appeal unfounded.
“Operation Mirror” was carried out on the day 21 November 2023, by the National Counter Terrorism Unit (UNCT) da PJ, and which resulted in the arrest of 19 people, having five men and two women, six Romanians and one Portuguese, were subject to the most severe measure, preventive detention and the remaining twelve defendants with periodic presentations three times a week.
In total, the process has 33 Defendants, 24 individual people, including 5 Portuguese and 9 Business, with Ileana Mezo and her husband, Zoltan Mezo, both in preventive detention, are described by investigators as the “leaders of the network” that exploited hundreds of workers, from Faro do Alentejo, in Cuba municipality.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
