NAs the trial began, at the Beja Court, the defendant, a 38-year-old woman, accused of two crimes of qualified homicide and qualified robbery, agreed to give a statement to say that she disagreed with the accusation.
“I didn’t kill them. I don’t know if it was Fernando [o outro arguido]but I won’t stick my hands in the fire for anyone”he stated.
The defendant, his partner, a 54-year-old man, accused of the same crimes, preferred not to speak at this stage of the trial.
Before the panel of judges who are judging the case, the woman said that she had lived for four days on the German couple’s farm, together with her mother and her partner, and said that the three of them did domestic and agricultural work.
“Fernando said that you were going to pay for the services we provided”, replied the defendant, when asked by the collective’s president whether they were unhappy with the lack of payment.
According to the woman, the defendant and the elderly German argued frequently and one of the reasons for the disagreement was the lack of meat in the meals they ate at the elderly home, as the German couple were vegetarians.
The defendant reported that, on April 16, 2023, identified by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) as the day on which the homicides occurred, after dinner, the defendant was alone in the room with the elderly woman and then asked the woman to call the elderly.
“I don’t know what happened inside. I didn’t hear anything”, he stressed.
Shortly afterwards, he continued, the defendant left the house with a bag containing the three of their belongings, including a lamp, walked and ended up calling a taxi that took them to Beja, where they stayed the night in a guesthouse.
Pointing out that she never returned to the German couple’s farm, the woman again failed to guarantee that the defendant had not done so, as, the following day, the man was absent from the guesthouse where they were staying for an hour and a half.
Questioned by the judges, the defendant acknowledged that, already in Aljustrel, where they had since moved, she traveled with the defendant in the victims’ car and saw him use the German couple’s bank card.
“Fernando told me that they had given him the car because they owed them money”, he explained, giving the same answer when asked about his bank card.
As for selling the car for 200 euros, the woman stressed that it was the defendant who made the deal.
One of the judges also confronted the defendant with alleged contradictions between her testimony and that of her mother, particularly in relation to her presence inside the house at the time the murders occurred, but the woman maintained her version.
The two defendants, who are in pre-trial detention, are expected to return to court on Wednesday for closing arguments.
The murder of the elderly Germans occurred on April 16, 2023 on the couple’s farm, in Baleizão, in the municipality of Beja, but the bodies were only found by the authorities almost a month later, on May 11, after an alert given by the son, who lives in Germany.
According to the prosecution, the defendants took advantage of the fact that the 71-year-old woman was alone and “struck her several times using an iron bar”. Afterwards, the defendant went to call the elderly man, who was in an annex, and when he entered the house they hit him with “several blows, using an iron bar, on the head, torso and limbs”.
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Tags: Alleged homicide elderly German couple Beja denies responsibility crime
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