Sixteen lawyers for the defendants in the Tancos gun theft case filed a protest to the criminal investigating judge, Carlos Alexandre, for learning about the media’s decision to pronounce.
Carlos Alexandre decided to bring former Defense Minister Azeredo Lopes to trial and the remaining 22 defendants in the case of Tancos. Azeredo Lopes will be tried for the four crimes for which he was accused: denial of justice, malfeasance, personal favoritism practiced by an employee and abuse of power.
The lawyers refer that on May 13, 2020, in the last session of the instructional debate, the judge “communicated to the procedural subjects that the instructional decision would be rendered on June 26, at 3:00 pm, and that the defendants’ representatives would immediately knowledge through email that would be addressed to them, with the defendants and their agents being exempt from being present “.
They add that “last Friday, the hours passed without the defendants’ representatives having received a copy of the instructional decision, while in the media it was reported that all the defendants had been pronounced in the exact terms contained in the Ministry’s accusation. Public”.
“There is no question of the media’s disclosure of the meaning of the instructional decision, because the country had the right to be aware of that decision from the moment it was delivered, that is, presumably, from 3 pm last Friday. fair “, they add in the letter sent to Carlos Alexandre, to which Expresso had access.
“What is at issue is that the Court did not ensure, timely and properly, that this communication, because it was due, was to be made at that same time to the defendants’ agents (admitting that the defendants would have to follow by post)”. This resulted that “throughout the afternoon and evening of last Friday, the media was echoing the meaning of the decision, while the signatories and their constituents remained in ignorance of it, with the exception of two colleagues who became aware of the content of the decision by consulting the file with the court “.
This lack of knowledge, they say, “still happens to several representatives today – and without receiving any justification for the delay (we don’t even talk about a simple apology that was expected to have been addressed to us)”. Some of the lawyers started to receive a copy of the instructional decision handed down, but it did not reach everyone.
“We deeply regret what is happening with the notification of your instructional decision, as well as with the lack of justification for what is required and owed to us,” say the lawyers. “We will make this presentation / request known to the President of the Superior Council of the Judiciary, President of the Bar Association, Presidents of the Regional Councils of Lisbon and Porto of the Bar Association for the purposes deemed convenient; we will also give public knowledge of this initiative, because we understand that we have this right and that duty “.
“We draw up the competent protest, due to the disrespect and disregard that this situation shows towards the representatives of the process, at the same time that we require you to ensure that all due notifications are made as soon as possible and that we are provided with the necessary information. clarifications deserved for this sad occurrence “, conclude the lawyers.
The defendants are divided between those who participated in the assault on the national storerooms of Tancos at dawn on June 28, 2017 (nine suspects) and those who were involved in the illegal arms recovery operation, which was placed in a Chamusca wasteland in October that year (fourteen defendants).
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