PORTUGAL: Prominent Figures in the Dock on Pedophilia Charges

By Mario de Queiroz Reprint | | Print |

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Nov 25 2004 (IPS) - Eight people implicated in a high profile child sex abuse scandal that has shaken Portuguese society to the core since late 2002 finally came to trial Thursday.

In the dock in the Boa Hora tribunal in Lisbon sat Carlos Silvino, a former driver for the Casa Pía state-run children’s homes; lawyers Manuel Abrantes and Hugo Marçal; Jorge Ritto, a former Portuguese ambassador to South Africa; TV talk-show host Carlos Cruz; pediatrician Joao Ferreira Diniz; archaeologist Francisco Alves; and Gertrudes Nunes.

The defendants face charges ranging from procuring and rape to homosexual acts with adolescents and sexual abuse of minors.

The files for the case include 13,000 pages divided into nine volumes, and a total of 790 witnesses are to testify in the trial, which is expected to drag on for months.

The prosecution brought by the attorney-general’s office is based on accusations by 17 young people born from 1984 to 1988, who were between the ages of 12 and 16 when they were reportedly abused in 1999 and 2000, as well as 29 youngsters born between 1983 and 1991, who ranged in age from eight to 16 when the abuse allegedly occurred.

Silvino is facing 690 different charges involving sexual abuse of minors; Abrantes is facing 51; Ritto 11; Cruz six; Ferreira Diniz 18; and Marçal 14 counts of sexual abuse of children and 21 counts of procuring.

Nunes, meanwhile, who reportedly provided her country house for the abuse, faces 35 counts of procuring, while Alves is accused of illegal weapons possession.

The scandal first broke out in November 2002, when the local weekly publication "Expresso" reported on an alleged sex ring that preyed on children from the Casa Pía homes, public institutions that house 3,500 orphans and abandoned and troubled children.

The article contained testimony from "Joel", the pseudonym given by a boy in Casa Pía who accused Silvino, a former driver and caretaker in the children’s homes, of raping him.

A few days later, Silvino was arrested for allegedly running a child sex ring.

In March 2003, the then director of Casa Pía, Luís Rebelo, was sacked and replaced by his assistant director, Manuel Abrantes. But just two days later, Abrantes was arrested on pedophilia charges.

The first allegations that retired ambassador Ritto, one of the country’s top diplomats, and Cruz, a popular TV personality, were involved in the child abuse emerged in late 2002.

Cruz, Marçal (Silvino’s lawyer), Dr. Ferreira Diniz, and Nunes were arrested in February 2003.

That same month, child psychiatrist Pedro Strecht, the head of the mental health support team in Casa Pía, said more than 100 cases of sexual abuse of minors had been detected.

Former ambassador Ritto and socialist legislator and former social welfare minister Paulo Pedroso were arrested in May 2003, and archaeologist Alves was detained in June.

Pedroso, whose arrest was based on wiretapped phone conversations and the testimony of a Casa Pía resident who identified him from a photograph, unleashed a political scandal.

During the period when the arrests were carried out, there were a number of leaks of information to the media that could only have come from the attorney-general’s office.

The case acquired such magnitude that Portuguese President Jorge Sampaio himself was forced to intervene. In September 2003, Sampaio said attention should be paid to some aspects of the legal system, like guaranteeing the presumption of innocence and making sure wiretapped phone conversations were used appropriately in investigations.

However, the president reiterated his confidence in Attorney-General Antonio de Souto Moura.

Pedroso was released in October 2003 by an appeals court ruling.

In late 2003, the investigation was closed without having found enough evidence to prove the existence of a criminal "pedophile network", although the defendants were accused of sexually abusing minors as part of an "informal" ring.

In the first half of 2004, seven of the eight defendants, all of whom are well-to-do, were put under house arrest until the trial. The only one still in prison is Silvino, the former driver.

Among the heads that have rolled over the Casa Pía case were those of judicial police chief Adelino Salvado, who resigned last August after being accused of providing confidential information on the case to a journalist, and Sara Pina, Attorney-General Souto Moura’s press adviser, who lost her job for violating judicial confidentiality.

There is a national clamour, led by the opposition, for Souto Moura’s removal. But the parties that hold a majority in parliament back the attorney-general, and Sampaio and Prime Minister Pedro Santana Lopes have reaffirmed their confidence in him.

The scandal has highlighted a growing lack of confidence in Portugal’s judicial system, especially among the lower income sectors of society. The trial, which opened Thursday and will continue on Dec. 2, is "designed to favour the rich," said one of the onlookers crowding around the entrance to the Boa-Hora courtroom.

A survey by the Marktest polling firm, whose results were reported Thursday by local media outlets, found that a majority of Portuguese citizens do not believe justice applies equally to all: 64.3 percent said the trial would not be fair, while only 22.5 percent said justice would be done. (The remaining 13.2 percent said they had no opinion).

There is evidence that the abuse continued for decades, starting as far back as the mid-1970s. Grown-up former residents of Casa Pía have told of abuse they suffered there as youngsters.

There have also been signs of a cover-up. Teresa Costa Macedo, who was serving as deputy minister of family social affairs in 1982, said last year that she had provided the judicial police with a dossier containing testimony by victims and photographs that proved the charges of pedophilia, in 1982.

The judicial police initially denied the existence of any reports from Costa Macedo or young sex abuse victims.

But after Costa Macedo stated in public that she had copies of her own, the reports immediately appeared in a police station.

The former official said she had received death threats after she turned to the police in the 1980s.

A case that was opened in 1983 was shelved in 1987 due to ”insufficient evidence,” and the files were destroyed in 1993 on the grounds that the statute of limitations had run out.

But victims and their families filed lawsuits in 2001 and 2002, which led to a new investigation.

Local analysts say the Casa Pía case has caused lasting damage to public confidence in the democratic system in Portugal, which was ruled by a dictatorship from 1926 to 1974.

The media attention received by the case, which has stayed in the headlines and received heavy television coverage since the scandal first erupted in late 2002, and opinions expressed by the public make it clear that Portuguese society will closely follow the outcome of the trial.

For the orphans, deaf-mute children and other defenceless victims who suffered abuse for years, justice could help restore their shattered confidence in adults. And for the legal system, what is at stake is nothing less than its credibility.