In the final arguments, which took place on the afternoon of March 19th, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) requested the conviction of the Portuguese couple, defending the application of 25 years in prison to each of the defendants.
The penalty known today results from the legal combination of two crimes of simple homicide, having lost qualification, and one of qualified robbery. Fernando and Mónica were sentenced to a total of 22 years in prison, 14 years for each of the murder crimes and 2 years and 6 months for the robbery crime. In solidarity, they have to pay 30 thousand euros in compensation to the victims’ families
The crimes occurred at the beginning of the second half of April 2023, and the bodies of the septuagenarian couple were only discovered on May 10, in an advanced state of decomposition, after an alert from the victims’ son who was unable to contact his parents. Two days later, the defendants were arrested, in Aljustrel, by the PJ, having been placed in preventive detention
When reading the ruling, the president of the Panel of Judges highlighted the behavior of Fernando and Mónica, “who acted with a single intention: to take the victim away from the couple”. “You had total insensitivity and contempt for the victims and lacked any act of apology or repentance,” she concluded.
Ilse’s daughter heard the judge read the ruling while holding onto a frame with her mother’s photograph, which she always had close to her heart. André Caetano, Mónica’s lawyer, said he considered that “the penalty is excessive given the little evidence provided at trial” and that, for that reason, he would appeal. Margarida Alves, Fernando’s lawyer, will also appeal.
The defendants will wait in pre-trial detention for the ruling to become final, Fernando in the Prison Establishment (EP) of Beja, and Mónica in the EP of Odemira.
Tags: Couple sentenced years prison double murder Germans Beja
