courthouse descended into bizarre scenes of anarchy last week when 19 defendants reacted against stiff sentences. Reporting on the ‘shouts and kicks’ that ensued, Correio da Manhã newspaper described how some of the defendants climbed out of their section and started kicking the furniture.
“The PSP mobilised various teams to control the revolt,” wrote Correio da Manhã. “And even then they had to ask for back-up.”
The extraordinary scenes broke out as the Tribunal de Coimbra was pronouncing on a drug trafficking case masterminded by a woman reportedly well into her 80s. Sentences ranged from 11 years behind bars – for the matriarch of the family – to five-and-a-half years.
One man, receiving a seven-year sentence, is reported to have yelled: “Seven years? What is this?” before he ran out of the room, sobbing.
The 19 defendants – four of whom were absolved of all charges – nearly all came from the same family, said the newspaper. They were charged with offences involving a drug-ring that operated in “various parts of the city”.
