Closure at last has come for the family and friends of 17-year-old Bruna Nunes’ brutal killer.
The Aljezur schoolgirl’s former stepfather Mihai Oprea has been condemned to 25 years in jail, which in this case will almost certainly mean 25 years.
The panel of judges in Portimão handed on four separate jail terms: 19 years for qualified murder, four for kidnap, eight for rape and one year for “desecration of a body”.
The total would see the 36-year-old Romanian serve 32 years except for the fact that maximum jail terms in Portugal can only run to 25.
Thus feeling locally, where everyone who knew Bruna was waiting for this verdict, is that Oprea will remain in jail for the entirety of his sentence.
The father of Bruna’s younger half-sister, Oprea was further condemned to pay his victim’s family €110,000.
This seems unlikely ever to happen, but it will mean that any assets Oprea has in Romania should now be ‘seized’.
Hearing the verdict, the Romanian who remained on the run for just over two years – before being arrested in a joint police operation (click here) – was described as “impassive”.
He has been in preventive custody in Silves Jail since his extradition from Romania in February, and he was returned to Silves to “await the formalities of the proceedings”.
In an emotional post online, Bruna’s mother Lília Silva has thanked everyone who had helped and supported her over the last few horrific years, leading with the words: “Finally Justice, finally the truth”.
In Aljezur – where so many people remember the “special girl with the smile in her eyes” – the only hope that can safely be published is that the next 25 years for Mihai Oprea pass as slowly as possible.
