After the instructional debate that took place at the Beja Court, the Criminal Investigation Judge of the General Competence Court (TCG) of Cuba made known late this Tuesday afternoon, the decision to maintain 16 Defendants, all foreign, in custody.
From the investigative decision there are also significant changes to the accusation, once they fell 20 of 55 human trafficking crimes against Timorese victims, for all forty-one individual defendants.
In addition to that, some of the defendants were not sentenced for many of the crimes they were accused of, some falling below the tenth of what was found in the initial accusation, namely criminal association and money laundering.
Has learned the Lidador News (LN), at least one of the accused is of Portuguese nationality, was cleared of all crimes, not being pronounced for trial. On Monday, two defendants from Beja who were under house arrest had left that condition and were now subject to an identity and residence term. (TIR).
Pedro Pestana, lawyer for five of the defendants, four of whom were released late yesterday afternoon, told LN that “the decision benefited all the defendants, who go to trial with much fewer facts imputed. Even so, represents a victory for the defendants’ debts”, justified.
The lawyer maintained that “I will wait to read the instructional decision in full and I intend to appeal its nullities and illegalities”, finished.
It should be remembered that yesterday, after the conclusion of the first session of the instructional debate, ten of the twenty-six defendants in the mega human trafficking case were released, in an operation was carried out in 23 November 2022 by PJ, in 14 localities in the municipalities of Cuba, Beja, Ferreira do Alentejo, Vidigueira and Serpa, Romanian citizens have been detained (20), Portuguese (9), moldavos (7), Indian (3), Guineans (1) and Ukrainians (1) and several “slave collectors” coming from almost all the countries of origin of the 457 people identified for living in inhumane conditions.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
