Disgraced magistrate hears he must face jail

Another deeply depressing moment for disgraced magistrate Orlando Figueira: Lisbon’s appeal court has confirmed the jail sentence he received three years ago – meaning, unless he appeals further, he may well have to bite the bullet and go to jail. The issue with this story is that Orlando Figueira is the only ‘guilty party’ to have received an effective jail term for his part in the “Operation Fizz” investigation which for a while appeared to threaten Portuguese-Angolan relations (click here). Everyone else either got off lightly, or was not even tried. Another odd aspect of the original trial was that Mr Figueira received a longer jail term than the one requested by the prosecution (click here).