Preventive detention for Guinean deputy detained in Lisbon with 13kg of cocaine

Guinean deputy Manuel Irénio Nascimento Lopes, detained on Tuesday at Lisbon airport with 13 kilograms of cocaine, was placed in pre-trial detention, a judicial source told Lusa news agency.

According to the same source, the defendant was present at the first judicial interrogation at the Lisbon Criminal Instruction Courtwhich decreed the most serious coercive measure: preventive detention.

The deputy of the Movement for Democratic Alternation (MADEM-G 15) Manuel Irénio Nascimento Lopes, aged 57, was detected at Humberto Delgado Airport, in Lisbon, after a flight with the Portuguese air carrier TAP from Bissau, with 13 kilos of cocaine hidden in luggage.

This one This is the second case of suspected drug trafficking by Guinean individuals detained at Lisbon airport in recent weeks.

Prosecutor Eduardo Mancanha, who was on leave to study in Portugal for more than three years, was arrested on April 21 “in flagrante delicto” in possession of two kilograms of a product presumed to be drugs, according to a statement from the Superior Council of Judiciary of the Guinean Public Ministry, issued on the 25th, in which his suspension from duties was announced.

The President of Guinea-Bissau, Umaro Sissoco Embaló, regretted Mancanha’s arrest, stressing that the case is being dealt with between the judiciaries of both countries.

The Guinean newspaper The Democrat states that deputy Manuel Irénio Lopes, known as “Manelinho”, is “a businessman who invests in the quarry sector” and also a political leader, being part of the 15 dissident deputies of the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC), who, in 2015, created MADEM-G 15, the second largest political force in the country. Manuel Lopes presided over the Guinea-Bissau Football Federation for eight years, thaving been dismissed in 2020 by FIFAafter being found guilty of having “failed to protect the physical and mental integrity of a man victim of a mass attack”, and was prevented from maintaining links to the sport for ten years, adds the newspaper.