A group of 25 São Tomense people demonstrated yesterday in Lisbon against the attack on the Armed Forces barracks, demanding justice and speed in the investigation.
This Saturday, just over two dozen São Tomense residents in Portugal, demonstrated in front of the Jerónimos Monastery in Lisbon. They held a banner with the phrase “Massacre of November 25, 2022” and pictures of the alleged suspects killed and tortured during the attack.
The protesters criticize the “normalization” of the case and call for action by the Portuguese authorities. The march was called to show the community’s “indignation” against the investigation process of the November 25, 2022 episode, in which five people were tortured and four of them killed.
Inocência Mata, essayist, university professor and researcher from São Tomé, participated in the march. Speaking to journalists, she justified her presence with a “civic sense” about an episode that, she says, will “mark forever, in a tragic, sad, and terrible way, the history of São Tomé and Príncipe.
Four people were barbarically tortured and executed, but worse, everyone knows who the perpetrators of this act were, there is a video where this is evident, where there are military and nurses, who were there and watched (…) and no one is in custody for investigation. Which means that they are protected by the power.
Inocência Mata adds that what happened “was savagery.
On November 25, 2022, according to the authorities, four civilians attempted to attack the military barracks in São Tomé.
Five people were tortured and, of these, four were killed, with videos of the acts circulating on the internet. Only one of the alleged perpetrators survived, Lucas Lima, who has since been held in preventive detention.
Two months after the attack on the military barracks, the São Tomense justice system has two ongoing investigation processes. One for attempted coup consolidated in the attack on the barracks and a second investigating the murder and torture of suspects.
