All suspects detained for allegedly setting a bus on fire during riots following the death of Odair Moniz, which severely injured a Carris driver, have been released – the last suspect left prison in May.
It was revealed today that the Public Prosecutor, who maintains the case under judicial secrecy and investigation, requested the release of two of the detainees in pre-trial detention, which was executed.
The Lisbon North district court informed Lusa that the two suspects who were detained ceased pre-trial detention on March 18 and May 26, with one defendant placed under identity and residence terms (TIR) and prohibited from contacting the other defendants, while the other was only subject to TIR.
“The defendants were returned to freedom by the investigating judge, following the Public Prosecutor’s (MP) promotion,” stated the Lisbon North district, regarding the end of the pre-trial detention measure, as reported today by Expresso.
The Attorney General’s Office (PGR), when questioned about the reasons for the MP’s request for release, only stated that the inquiry is under investigation, “subject to judicial secrecy” and “has no defendants detained.”
The two defendants released had been in pre-trial detention since November 28, with a third detainee on similar grounds released at that time by the Loures Court investigating judge, after the MP constituted him as a defendant only for drug trafficking suspicions.
The two young men were indicted for attempted qualified homicide, arson, and damage.
The suspects were arrested for allegedly setting a bus on fire in Santo António do Cavaleiros, Loures, in October 2024, which severely injured the driver, leaving him with permanent injuries. The group of suspects reportedly threw a molotov cocktail at the bus window, leaving the driver, who was discharged from the hospital in November, with severe burns on his face, chest, and upper limbs.
The incident occurred during riots that followed the death of Odair Moniz.
At the time, a person identified as Tiago expressed “satisfaction” with the fact that two of those detained for the attack were kept in pre-trial detention.
“Satisfied and relieved,” he told CNN Portugal in reaction to the news. “I can’t find another way to punish them but to keep them behind bars,” he added.
Reflecting on the incident, Tiago recalled the night of the attack during an interview with TVI, stating he asked to be let out of the bus but was not allowed.
“They started throwing molotov cocktails at me. I immediately noticed a fuel smell. It only took one person to spark and I caught fire. The flames came towards me. (…) Why didn’t they let me out and set the bus on fire? I asked to be let out,” he questioned.
Before escaping the bus, the driver only had time to grab his phone “with his left hand, which was on fire.” Once outside, he started running and shouting for an ambulance while extinguishing the fire “from his face and head with his right hand.” “So much that I looked at my hand and the skin literally fell off. It was raw,” he recalled.
When emergency teams arrived, the driver was in a dead-end street alone, and the ambulance couldn’t reach the location. “I had to walk the entire journey to the ambulance, about 150 meters uphill, stumbling. I reach the ambulance already out of it. They immediately put me in a coma, and I blacked out. From that point, I only woke up a week later,” he remembered.
He acknowledged that the trauma would last “for life.” “I don’t hurt anyone. I have a father with Alzheimer’s, I always help others, and yet this happened to me. I don’t know why. I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time,” the victim expressed.
“I look at my hands and don’t like them; I have no patience because it’s a slow recovery. I have a lot of pain, both cold and hot. They marked me for no apparent reason,” he lamented.
Asked if he would ever be able to forgive, the man stated he “would not accept an apology.” “This is not done to anyone. Especially not to someone who is working, doing their job. This is inexcusable. It was the worst moment of my life, undoubtedly. I saw my life slipping away. I had a survival instinct. Today I wonder how I managed,” he concluded.
For several nights, riots occurred in various neighborhoods across Greater Lisbon following the death of Cape Verdean citizen Odair Moniz, 43, resident of the Zambujal neighborhood in Amadora, shot by a PSP officer in the early hours of October 21 in the Cova da Moura neighborhood, in the same municipality, and died shortly thereafter.
During the riots, more buses, dozens of cars, and garbage containers were set on fire, but the attack that severely injured the driver is the most serious under investigation.
In May, the PGR confirmed that the inquiries opened to the riots had, so far, resulted in five accusations, without specifying which cases were referred.
