The trial of ten defendants charged with insults and attempted assault on Henrique Gouveia e Melo and Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues begins this Monday at the Central Criminal Court of Lisbon. What is at stake?
The trial relates to incidents during the pandemic, one in August 2021, when denialist protesters shouted “murderer” and “genocide” at the former coordinator of the Covid-19 vaccination plan task force, Henrique Gouveia e Melo, near the vaccination center in Odivelas.
About a month later, an incident involving Ferro Rodrigues occurred when he was walking with his wife to a nearby restaurant for lunch, during a pandemic denialist protest near the Parliament. The then-president of the Assembly of the Republic was called “pedophile” and “disgusting.”
The case reaches trial after the Central Judicial Court of Lisbon decided, in December 2024, that there was sufficient evidence to try ten of the twelve defendants constituted by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) for the crimes of aggravated attempted bodily harm, aggravated insult, aggravated threat, and qualified damage in its consummated form.
The MP constituted twelve defendants, but some requested the opening of an inquiry and Judge Sofia Marinho Pires decided not to prosecute two of the defendants, who were accused of a crime of qualified bodily harm in its attempted form against Gouveia e Melo.
The trial begins at 09:15.
