The defendants had already been sentenced to the same punishment by the same court on April 3, 2024, but the Évora Court of Appeal (TRE) declared a partial nullity of that judgment on October 22 of the same year, following an appeal by the defense.
The appellate judges of the TRE justified their decision by citing the use of “prohibited proof valuation” and ordered the first-instance court to issue a new judgment excluding “as evidence the statements made by the defendants” during the initial judicial interrogation.
At this afternoon’s session at the Beja Court, dedicated to reading the new judgment, the panel of judges who tried the case sentenced the couple to the same previous punishment, namely, 22 years of effective imprisonment for the simple murder of the two elderly Germans, according to the defendants’ lawyer, Pedro Pestana.
“The panel of judges sentenced my clients to 22 years of imprisonment; they attended the reading of the judgment and remain at the disposal of the authorities,” stated the lawyer.
The co-defendants, he recalled, have been at liberty since May 13, after the maximum period of two years of pre-trial detention was exceeded without the judicial process being concluded.
“An appeal will be filed with the TRE to contest this conviction,” revealed Pedro Pestana, noting he has 30 days to carry out this step.
For the defense, the court’s decision should have been acquittal because “the autopsies are inconclusive and the causes of death of the German seniors were not ascertained,” so “the defendants could not be convicted with certainty.”
However, “the court gave much weight to the testimony of the defendant’s mother, who allegedly heard a scream before they left the house,” and “the testimony of another witness who stated the German couple no longer wanted the caretakers in the house” was equally valued.
Pedro Pestana further stated that the court “valued the rules of common experience and the fact that [the co-defendants] appropriated the credit cards and car of the German couple.”
“But the qualified theft was proven. The defendant admitted to stealing the cards and the car and selling it, but while the German couple was alive. The qualified theft was linked to the deaths of the individuals,” he criticized.
While the judicial decision is not yet final, the defendants are subject to the measure of restraint of identity and residence.
The alleged homicides are said to have occurred on April 16, 2023, at the German couple’s farm in Baleizão, in the municipality of Beja, but the bodies were only found by the authorities almost a month later, on May 11, following an alert given by a son residing in Germany.
