It has taken over two years, but finally the former step-father of Aljezur schoolgirl Bruna Nunes has been formally charged with her hideous murder.
Bruna, 17 – a promising local athlete – was bludgeoned to death with what investigators suggested at the time was a sharp stone or rock.
Her half-naked body was found on waste ground in the area known as Aldeia Velha three days after she was reported missing – and a day after her Romanian ‘step-father’ Mihai Razvan Oprea disappeared from the area, never to return.
There then followed a ‘man-hunt’ that lost Oprea almost as soon as he crossed the border into Spain.
Police always insisted they would never give up looking for him (click here) – and earlier this year, authorities hit ‘pay dirt’: Razvan was located living under an assumed identity in the Romanian town of Cluj-Napoca (click here).
He was extradited back to Portugal to face charges, and has since been held in Silves jail.
Yesterday (Thursday), the Public Ministry formally charged Oprea with attempted rape, sexual coercion, qualified murder, kidnap and the desecration of Bruna Nunes’ body.
The prosecution will set out the show that Oprea demonstrated “special callousness” in the way that he allegedly sought to hide the body as well as all signs of the crime, writes news website Algarveprimeiro.
Oprea meantime will remain in prison till his trial.
