PORTUGUESE PRESIDENT Cavaco Silva has handed the Procurator-General an anonymous letter containing accusations of sexual abuse at the Casa Pia children’s home.
The letter, signed by ‘Ordinary People’ and posted from Badajoz, denounces various crimes of a sexual nature allegedly committed in a house in Elvas belonging to one of the material witnesses in the case, Gertrude Nunes.
In the letter, the anonymous writer claims that various defendants, and other public figures linked to the PS party, went to the house to engage in underage sex with minors from the state-run orphanage.
Cavaco Silva has handed the letter to the Procurator-General or Chief Prosecutor, Pinto Monteiro who in turn has submitted the letter to Prosecutor João Aibéu who is responsible for putting the Casa Pia case together.
The letter has been severely criticised by the defendants’ defence team who claim that an anonymous letter cannot be used as proof in a court case.
The new President of Casa Pia, Joaquina Madeira, has denied all knowledge of the existence of further cases of sexual abuse linked to the institution following salacious reports and sensational accusations made by former President Catalina Pestana in weekly broadsheet newspaper ‘Sol.’
On Friday Joaquina Madeira flatly denied knowledge of further abuses in a meeting with the PGR and also said that Catalina Pestana had forwarded further denouncements to the Ministério Público one day prior to her leaving her post at Casa Pia.
Catalina Pestana allegedly told the PGR about the existence of a further house in Lisbon where various individuals had booked sex sessions with Casa Pia pupils.
One of those referred to in the denouncement is already a defendant in the paedophile case being judged at a court in Monsanto.
A former Casa Pia pupil had apparently groomed and enlisted juveniles from the Maria Pia College in Lisbon, for the express purpose of being sexually abused by adults.
Joaquina Madeira claims she had no knowledge of the detailed list of accusations in a letter sent by Catalina Pestana to the Ministério Publico.
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