Africa-Press – Cape verde. Lawyer Amadeu Oliveira confirmed today that he never denied that he had helped his constituent Arlindo Teixeira to leave the country, but considered it “a barbarity” of the accusation that he wanted to “destroy the rule of law”.
On the third day of the trial, at the São Vicente court, in which Amadeu Oliveira had the team of five lawyers complete again, after three of them had left the room in the previous day’s session, the defendant answered exclusively, for close to three hours , to questions from his defense team, always through the lawyer Zuleica Reis.
He reinforced that he did not commit any act of attacking the rule of law, and classified the accusation as “absurd”.
He also said he was not a terrorist and denied that he wanted to destroy the rule of law.
“Null process”
Interrogated by the defence, Amadeu Oliveira stated that this process in which he is being tried “was born crooked and is null from the beginning”, since the Public Ministry ordered his arrest “without a prior indictment” and without his mandate to suspended deputy.
On the question whether he used his deputy status to leave the country with Arlindo Teixeira, the lawyer said that the plan he drew up and implemented “was legal”, the institutions were “all informed” and that he decided to start the operation on the day that he was sure that the Attorney General of the Republic had been notified of the termination of the coercive measures that had been imposed on Teixeira.
Fallacy
“From that day, June 25, 2021, nothing stopped me and I was determined to the death to leave the country with Arlindo Teixeira”, declared Amadeu Oliveira, who detailed that he took care of everything in Praia and that “no one in São Vicente” had “any participation in the plan”.
Even so, Amadeu Oliveira said that he has been in prison since July last year for a “fallacy” that he used the condition of deputy to leave the country with his constituent.
“I would never invoke my status as a deputy, as I have never received absolutely anything from the National Assembly, in the approximately two months as a deputy, when I have been Arlindo’s unofficial defender for seven years”, he justified.
To the court, the defendant also mentioned that one of the reasons for his dissatisfaction with the Justice is related to several actions of denial by the Supreme Court of Justice (STJ), whose criminal section does not deserve “an iota of respect”, having justified , for example, with an appeal that took five years to decide, when the law establishes 30 days.
Improvements in the justice sector
At a given moment in today’s morning session, Amadeu Oliveira, to justify criticism of the judicial system and to “show that he is not a terrorist who wants to destroy the Judicial System and the Rule of Law”, listed a set of improvements that will continue to fight, among them the judicial inspection, “which does not exist in Cape Verde”, alteration to the composition of the superior councils, which will imply revision of the Constitution, the total computerization of the system and the reform of “some magistrates”.
Here, the presiding judge of the collective, Circe Neves, intervened to clarify that the issue of computerization of justice will not solve the “big problem” of the sector which is, according to the judge, “the lack of personnel and materials” for the demand, since in order to computerize, human resources are needed, “more judges, more prosecutors and other servants”.
Circe Neves exemplified with the Barlavento Court of Appeal, with only three judges to “take care” of criminal and civil appeals throughout the Barlavento Region.
That is why, he suggested, these are matters that should be discussed “in depth”, listening to all those who are “inside the system”.
The judge’s clarification took place at the end of the morning session of the third day of the trial, which resumed at 3:00 pm, still in the case of questions from the defense to the defendant.
the case
Lawyer Amadeu Oliveira is accused of a crime of attacking the rule of law, a crime of coercion or disturbance of the functioning of the Constitutional Body and two crimes of offense to a legal person.
He was arrested on 18 July 2021 and, two days after the arrest, the Barlavento Court of Appeal, based in São Vicente, applied preventive detention to the then national deputy elected on the lists of the Cabo Verdean Independent and Democratic Union (UCID). ) by the constituency of São Vicente.
On 14 February, as a result of a Preliminary Contradictory Hearing, Amadeu Oliveira was prosecuted for the crimes he had been accused of and returned to the São Vicente Central Prison where he remains in preventive detention.
On 29 July, the National Assembly approved, by majority, in a secret vote, the suspension of the deputy’s mandate, requested in three separate cases by the Attorney General’s Office (PGR), in order to be able to put him on trial.
At issue are several accusations that he made against the judges of the Supreme Court of Justice and the escape from the country of the sentenced initially to 11 years in prison for murder – a sentence later revised to nine years – Arlindo Teixeira, in June last year, destined to Lisbon, and then went to France, where he has emigrated for several years.
Arlindo Teixeira was a constituent of Amadeu Oliveira, a strong opponent of the Cape Verdean justice system, in a process that he considered to be “fraudulent”, “manipulated” and with “falsification of evidence”.
Amadeu Oliveira publicly admitted, in parliament, that he planned and carried out the escape of the convict, for whom he was a defense attorney, in a case that earned him several public criticisms.
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