The accusation is contained in an order of June 23 of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Bragança, responsible for investigating the case of the death of student Giovani Rodrigues, in December 2019.
The order of the Public Prosecutor leaves six months after the facts. The accusation falls on the eight detained by the Judiciary Police, all from the municipality of Bragança, three of whom are in preventive detention and four at home with an electronic bracelet.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a charge against each of seven of the suspects for “committing an aggravated felony murder, one in consummate form and three in attempted form”.
The prosecution concluded that these suspects assaulted Giovani and also the three Cape Verdean friends who accompanied him on the night of the events.
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Antena 1
To two of these defendants the prosecutor accuses “the practice of a crime of possession of a prohibited weapon”.
The eighth defendant is accused of the crime of “personal favor” for allegedly “hiding, at the request of an accused, the stick with club used for the practice of the facts”.
“Escaramuça”
The Public Prosecutor considered that on the night of December 21, 2019, between 2:30 am and 3:15 am, in a bar in Bragança, one of the defendants and another individual who accompanied him fell out with the four young Cape Verdeans.
The reason for the disagreement was the fact that the defendants “assumed that these young men were harassing their girlfriends, which led to a skirmish healed by those in charge of the security of the said establishment”.
The Public Prosecutor goes on to say that abroad, the four Cape Verdeans “again addressed the said individual and his girlfriend, with these being locked up for reasons, which motivated four of the defendants to come to the scene, who were involved with the young people in reciprocal aggressions”.
The Public Prosecutor further indicates that “intending to avoid the aggressions, the four young men ran away from the place, being intercepted by another defendant who struck them several times with a stick with a club at one end”.
According to the prosecution, “in the meantime those four defendants arrived and still two others, one of them with a metal knuckle, having then, the seven, acted in concert, attacking the four youths with kicks, punches and strokes with sticks and the brass knuckle”.
“Surrounded by the seven defendants”
The Public Ministry found that three of the young Cape Verdeans fled, “but one of them [Giovani] he was surrounded by the seven defendants, and then he was attacked by everyone, namely on the head, with more punches and kicks, strokes with sticks, the metallic part of a belt and a knuckle, ending up prostrate on the ground “.
The Public Ministry considers that “this young man suffered injuries resulting from the aggressions that caused him to die, which occurred ten days later” and that “it was the defendants’ purpose that the same thing should happen to the other three, which just didn’t happen for reasons beyond their control”.
Cape Verdean student Giovani Rodrigues was found alone lying on a street in Bragança on 21 December. He died ten days later in a hospital in Porto.
The death of the young man, who had arrived in the region just over a month ago to study at the Mirandela school of the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança, prompted institutional reactions from Portugal and Cape Verde.
Police and judicial authorities emphasized “that there was no evidence that the facts committed by the defendants were determined by racial hatred or generated by the color, ethnic origin or nationality of the victims”.
c / Day after tomorrow
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