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The Chinese businessman accused of having started a fire in a building in Porto was sentenced this Thursday to 25 years in prison. The March 2019 fire killed a 55-year-old man.
The businessman was convicted of the material co-responsibility of a coerced crime in a tentative way, two crimes of arson, a felony of qualified homicide and a murder in a tentative way, for which reason 25-year legal cumulative. It will also have to compensate the son of the mortal victim in 170 thousand euros.
In court, the businessman has always denied direct or indirect involvement in the fires and the plan to empty the building for resale.
Your three Portuguese defendants in this case were acquitted of the crime of murder, but sentenced to nine months in prison for the crime of tentative coercion.
The building, at 100 Rua Alexandre Braga, was inhabited only on the third floor, by an octogenarian and three children.
The employer wanted the tenants to leave
The Chinese businessman will have hired people linked to the Porto night to, “through intimidation and threat”, force tenants to look for other accommodation.
He even offered 10,000, 15,000 and even 40,000 euros. to the family of the octogenarian who had been in the building for 50 years.
The building in question had been bought by the businessman, who later wanted to sell it at a price much higher than the purchase price.
According to the Public Ministry, the man would have “a loss of at least 320 thousand euros, taking into account the value of the signal”, if he did not release the property of people and goods before May 31, 2019. But work 555 thousand euros if he consummated, as he managed, the business in a timely manner.
There were two fires, the first “had a bad evolution”
On February 23, 2019, a first fire was lit to the building, which “had a bad evolution”. On March 2, the Chinese businessman orders “to set another fire on the building and kill its occupants,” the prosecutor had said.
The starting points of fire located next to the access door to the only inhabited apartment.
Firefighters rescued three of the offended, including the octogenarian, but another was found a day later, charred, in the attic of the building.
See here the SIC report “The City and Fear”
The age and length of leases make older tenants major obstacles in the way of a real estate business in the historic districts of Lisbon and Porto.
Physically fragile, often alone in buildings sold and resold by investors, companies and real estate funds, those most protected by law are the main targets of the various forms of fringe approaches.
“The city and fear“ Is a Great SIC Report that has as its starting point the incmeIf that caused the death of a 55-year-old man leaving two families homelessIlees.
