Luís Miguel Militão, a Portuguese national sentenced to 150 years in prison in Brazil for the murder of six Portuguese businessmen in Fortaleza in August 2001, claims that he is being held illegally and demands his immediate release.
The Tribunal de Justiça do Ceará (TJCE) has received seven ‘habeas corpus’ petitions for the immediate release of the convict.
All petitions have been submitted from the end of last year to the present, arguing that the “work and study completed during incarceration have surpassed the 30-year maximum set by Brazilian law for imprisonment.”
However, the judge who addressed the Defense’s claims for the ‘Monster of Fortaleza’ in April noted that such an argument “is not sufficient on its own to confirm reaching the maximum penalty execution limit.”
Furthermore, according to the magistrate, the time deduction “should apply to the total sentence,” referring to the 150-year sentence given to the murderer.
The expected release date for Militão, according to the source, is December 6, 2031, not immediately nor within 120 years.
It is noted that most of the ‘habeas corpus’ processes were initiated by the convict’s wife, Maria Leandro. Only one has not been archived, having been forwarded to the Superior Tribunal de Justiça.
The publication highlights that if the Portuguese native of Barreiro, now 55 years old, were released now, he would not have served even one-fifth of his sentence.
Currently, Militão is held in a semi-open regime. He has benefitted only from a brief seven-day leave in 2024.
Massacre occurred 24 years ago
In 2001, on August 12, six Portuguese businessmen aged between 42 and 57 were buried alive in Fortaleza, Brazil, after being lured to the city by Luís Miguel Militão.
The crime was orchestrated by the Portuguese emigrant, seeking to seize their money, and executed by Brazilian nationals.
The brutality of the murders shocked the world; the Portuguese victims were beaten with sticks and buried alive within a restaurant kitchen at Praia do Futuro.
Militão, later dubbed the ‘Monster of Fortaleza,’ was captured several days after the incident, on August 23, once authorities discovered he had withdrawn thousands of euros from the businessmen’s accounts.
The bodies of the Portuguese victims were discovered the following day, August 24.
On February 21, 2002, Militão, who had resided in Brazil after emigrating years earlier, was sentenced to 150 years in prison. Meanwhile, Manoel Lourenço Cavalcante, Leonardo Sousa dos Santos, and José Jurandir Pereira Ferreira, accomplices in the massacre, received 120-year sentences.
Raimundo Martins da Silva Filho, also Brazilian and identified in the process as the most brutal of the killers, received a 162-year sentence.
