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Although there are no exact figures, appellate court judges rarely convict a defendant who was acquitted at the first trial with the maximum penalty. “These are residual cases,” says a judge listening to Expresso. It happened to António Joaquim, the judicial official now sentenced to 25 years in prison for killing Luís Grilo, the triathlete, with the help of his lover. In 200 pages, Judge José Adriano explains why.
How is it possible that in the face of the same facts, seen under the same law, a man can be acquitted or sentenced to a maximum penalty of 25 years by two different courts? Portuguese law leaves a certain margin for the judges to interpret it, and in this specific case, as it was judged by the Public Ministry, there was no direct evidence linking António Joaquim, not even Rosa Grilo, with the murder of Luís Grilo . In the case of the woman, the two courts convicted her because Rosa assumed that she was at the scene of the crime and that she went to look for the weapon used to kill Luís Grilo in the lover’s house. And then she told a story with Angolans, who allegedly killed her husband for a diamond business, which was deemed unlikely.
During the trial she contradicted herself more than once and was unable to explain, for example, why she left her youngest son at home with the men who had killed her husband and did not ask anyone for help. In relation to António Joaquim, who denied and continues to deny any involvement in the crime, the Loures Court understood that the fact that there was not a single piece of evidence that put him in Luís e Rosa’s house raised an insurmountable doubt: if it helped or not to her lover. kill her husband? Did you fire the fatal shot?
This is an article from the weekly Expresso. Click HERE to continue reading.
