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Both defendants were convicted of supporting, assisting and collaborating with Islamic terrorism, “in apparent competition with the crime of financing terrorism.”
However, the court acquitted them of the crimes of affiliation and recruitment of militants for terrorist organizations.
The sentence showed that Cassimo Turé and Rómulo Costa “knew the political-military situation in Syria, but they also knew the extremist political-religious conventions of Nero Saraiva, Sadjo Turé (Cassimo’s brother), Edgar Costa and Celso Costa (Romulo’s brothers ), Fábio Poças and Sandro Marques, as well as their intention, in an organized way, through a group they formed in the United Kingdom (London), to join terrorist organizations ”.
Such organizations – advances of the collective court chaired by Francisco Coimbra – were namely ISIL and ISIS, the Emigrants Brigade and later the Islamic State (IS), with these friends and brothers of the accused “becoming members” of these movements ” recognized internationally by the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) as terrorists. “
The court also found it proven that those now convicted (Cassimo and Rómulo) knew that “this same group financed itself, through fraudulent schemes and, well, that the same members recruited, convinced and referred and recruited young people” to the ranks of those organizations . and that “logistically and financially supported their trips to Syria, by purchasing air tickets, goods and services, paying for hotel and boarding house stays, food and transportation, among others.”
In the opinion of the panel of judges, chaired by Francisco Coimbra, the defendants sentenced to a long prison sentence also knew that such members of their group and their families – women and children – had the purpose of integrating and joining the ranks of these organizations. terrorists with an Islamic matrix. in combat and armed conflict in Syria.
The conviction also indicates that the acts practiced by Cassmimo Turé and Rómulo Costa (support for terrorism, in apparent competition with the financing of the crime) called into question relevant legal rights “of special gravity” such as the “integrity and independence of the States, the functioning of institutions, security, life, liberty, order, public tranquility, which is why they are “generators of high social disturbance and instability, not only national, but international.”
The panel of judges further emphasizes that such “fighters from these terrorist organizations have indiscriminately killed and tortured victims in the conflict in Syria and Iraq, and continue to do so in terrorist attacks around the world,” including in Cabo Delgado (Mozambique) and Tanzania. .
According to the final part of the sentence, to which Lusa had access, the defendants Cassmimo Turé and Rómulo Costa “always acted freely, deliberately and consciously, knowing that their conduct of support and support for the referred group (Islamic radical)) and its members they were prohibited activities and criminally punished “.
As for Rómulo Costa, who was sentenced to the most severe prison sentence (nine years), the court justified that this defendant’s passport was used by his brother, Celso Costa, so that the latter could travel to Syria to fight in the ranks of IS. , and it has been verified that Edgar used Romulo’s passport on the border between Bulgaria and Turkey, according to data and information collected by the Judicial Police (PJ).
According to the evidence provided in the trial, Edgar Costa used his brother Romulo’s passport to enter Turkey, months before he was denied entry to that country, allowing him to go to Syria, where his wife and wife were already staying. son. by Edgar Costa.
Among many other points, and also regarding Rómulo Costa, in preventive detention in Portugal since 2019, the court says that wiretaps show that this defendant, when he learned of the murder of a British soldier in London, perpetrated by an Islamic radical, in May 2013, he commented: “It fell and will fall more.”
The group chaired by Francisco Coimbra rejected the defense argument that it was “immaturity” of the accused or “a joke in bad taste among adolescents”, referring that Rómulo Costa was already 30 years old and the intercepted conversation was a dialogue “between adults fully committed to the “extremist Islamic cause”.
Due to lack of “legal certainty” and granting the benefit of the doubt (‘in dubio pro reo’), the court did not prove the crime of adhesion to terrorism by the two defendants, also absolving them of the crime of recruitment for organizations. terrorists, but he made it very clear that the practice of crimes of support and collaboration with terrorist organizations has been verified, in apparent competition with the crime of financing these same radical Islamic movements.
In the final arguments, on November 10, the Public Ministry (MP) had requested that the sentence of the alleged jihadists be sentenced to more than eight years in prison, with legal basis, and the lawyer José Góis considered that there were wiretapping and other tests. they prove the facts imputed to the accused, highlighting that “it is not necessary to shoot anyone” for such crimes to be committed.
The defense of the defendants, led by lawyers Lopes Guerreiro and Ricardo Serrano Vieira, had requested the acquittal of their electors, alleging the fragility of the evidence presented by the MP and invoking the innocence of their clients.
Today, upon leaving the court, Ricardo Serrano Vieira, representing the defense, announced that he will appeal the conviction in matters of fact and law to the Lisbon Court of Appeal and criticized the excessive use by the court of “evidence indirect “, admit that it is” quicksand “to justify a conviction.
This process, in which former MEP Ana Gomes was heard as a witness by Rómulo Costa, resulted from an investigation of judicial cooperation between the Portuguese and British authorities, with the MP concluding that all the defendants joined forces, recruited and financed themselves . the IS, supporting the transfer of Portuguese and British citizens to Syria to fight alongside the jihadists.
