A 59-year-old Portuguese man residing in Saxon, a commune in Switzerland located in the Martigny district, has been sentenced to eight years in prison for the crimes of rape and kidnapping. The victim is a 27-year-old woman, also Portuguese.
The trial took place in Martigny on November 27. However, the victim appeared via video call from the court in Viana do Castelo, due to her fear of traveling to Switzerland.
The crimes occurred in 2021 and 2022. During that time, the man held the young woman captive in his apartment for a year. In July 2022, she managed to escape and return home.
“I was forced to pretend I was his wife. I did not want to,” stated the young woman, now 27, to the judge, adding that she was coerced into having sexual relations every day under threat and coercion.
The young woman recounted being deceived by the 57-year-old man, who was known to her parents and had emigrated to Switzerland in 2000. The now-convicted man offered her housing, promised her a job, and even paid for her trip.
However, upon arriving in Switzerland in the summer of 2021, everything changed. The man forbade her from leaving the house alone and confiscated her documents to prevent her from fleeing.
During the authorities’ investigations, the man claimed that the young woman came from a poor family and lived on the street. He decided to contact the victim’s parents through social media and, after a brief exchange of messages, traveled to Portugal.
In Portugal, he met the young woman’s mother at a shopping center, lent her money, and promised her daughter a better life.
The man’s defense, who did not attend the hearing due to health reasons, argued there was no attempt at kidnapping, asserting the young woman could have escaped through a window, as they lived on the ground floor.
The prosecution, however, stated that the young woman was under psychological threat, had no support in that country, did not speak French, and lacked both documents and financial resources.
The court confirmed the consistency of the victim’s testimony and noted inconsistencies in the defendant’s testimony, declaring the man guilty.
He was sentenced to eight years in prison. If the sentence is upheld, he will also have to pay 15,000 francs in damages to the victim and will be banned from Switzerland for 10 years.
Currently, the man remains free and will only be imprisoned once the sentence is finalized.
