Father and son convicted of killing man and hiding body in Figueira da Foz

The Coimbra Court sentenced a man to 20 years in prison and his son to 14 and a half years for the crimes of qualified homicide and desecration of a corpse, in Figueira da Foz in 2022.

The father was sentenced to an effective prison sentence of 19 years for the crime of qualified homicide and one year and nine months for the crime of desecration of a corpse, a total of 20 years in legal terms.

His son was sentenced to 14 years in prison for the crime of qualified homicide and one year for the crime of desecrating a corpse, in a total of 14 and a half years of effective imprisonment in legal terms.

Since November last year, the Coimbra Court has been trying a father and three sons from Figueira da Foz, who were accused of killing a man and hiding his body in 2022, with another son also being accused of failing to provide assistance.

The father and three of his children were charged with a crime of qualified homicide and a crime of desecration of a corpse, while another son was accused of failing to assist and possessing a prohibited weapon.

During the reading of the ruling, which took place this Tuesday, the Court of Coimbra decided to convict the father, aged 64, and only one of his children of murder, supported by the testimony of two eyewitnesses, who had been heard by teleconference, with distorted voice and image.

With the testimony of witnesses with hidden identities, the Court was able to understand that the father was supervising the moment in which three of his children attacked a boy and tried to get him into a large white van.

“One of the children was identified by an eyewitness, although he was unable to identify the two others completely”, said the judge, who clarified that the Court decided to acquit them, thus extinguishing the preventive detention in which they were placed, because he was not with the certainty of his identity, since the man has six more children.

A stain of the victim’s blood was also found in the 64-year-old man’s van, in a location that is consistent with what eyewitnesses described.

The father was seen as the mastermind of a “very serious crime”, while the son was seen as his subordinate.

Regarding the motivation for the crime, the Coimbra Court was convinced that it occurred because the victim “laid his hands” on drugs and weapons that did not belong to him and that, in this way, he signed “a kind of death sentence” , which ended up being consummated.

The Court also decided to sentence the other son, who was accused of the crime of failing to provide assistance, to two years in prison, which will be converted into 480 hours of community work.

The defendants’ defense lawyer informed that she will appeal the ruling.