In an extraordinary turnaround, the much publicised trial of a so-called Bosnian Mafia rounded up two years ago – and reported to have used and abused children – collapsed yesterday, freeing all the defendants and even paving the way for the children to be returned to their apparent parents.
DNA testing has been undertaken, writes CM – and it proves that the children rounded up and removed to institutions were in fact the offspring of the many defendants.
But the bottom line is that Lisbon’s 2º Vara Criminal Court did not buy the prosecution’s allegations that the defendants were all part of an organised crime ring that mistreated children and used them in the practice of crimes.
They also absolved the one Portuguese defendant who was presented as a female version of Bill Sykes, renting out property to the Bosnians knowing full well that they were intent on a life of crime and abusing youngsters in the process.
“It was not proved that this was an organised group, a criminal association or a ring helping illegal immigration”, the lead judge announced in court yesterday as the 17 defendants were all seen smiling broadly and giving the thumbs-up.
“What has been proved are some small scale thefts”, the judge continued.
“Lumping cases together like this is not a good strategy,” he added. “These cases could have been heard individually or in a lesser court. It would have been much quicker”.
As it was, four members of the so-called gang have been awaiting trial in jail since October of 2012. Releasing all concerned – some with suspended sentences – the court warned prosecutors that if they wanted to avoid situations like this in future, they had to change their strategies.
Pedro Proença, the lawyer defending one of the principal defendants in the trial, told reporters afterwards: “The whole investigation was based on speculation” – none of which had merited the holding of his defendant in jail for 20 months.
“Families have been destroyed” by the case, added Proença, who revealed that moves to free the 30 children seized 20 months ago and institutionalised are now ongoing.
The result will come as a major blow to the Public Ministry which had publicised the high-level arrests with flamboyant claims that a major crime ring had been finally brough to justice.
The allegations centred on theft from tourists, fraud and illegal immigration and the locations involved stretched from Porto, the Fátima sanctuary, Braga, Lisbon and even down to the Algarve.
Pedro Proena told Público newspaper that he is even considering going to the European Court of Human Rights over the way the authorities handled his client’s case.
Meantime, the Lisbon court has ordered a complete investigation into claims apparently made by the defendant’s son – one of the children removed to an institution.
The boy has alleged he was forced by the authorities to give an account which incriminated his father.
