Ihor Homeniuk died in appalling circumstances at a state-run immigration post at Lisbon airport
The director of former government borders agency SEF (Serviços de Estrangeiros e Fronteiras) has been condemned for denial of justice and prevarication over the hideous death of Ukrainian job seeker Ihor Homeniuk in March 2020.
Three border guards are already serving nine-year jail terms for their part in this scandal. This latest condemnation comes in ancillary prosecutions for people deemed to have had a role, albeit not active or primary.
In the case of António Sérgio Henriques, a Lisbon judge has ruled that he was guilty of having protected the three guards who beat Homeniuk brutally, leaving him to die slowly of asphyxiation due to broken ribs.
As Lusa explains: “the court proved that the defendant, who was dismissed from the civil service in 2021, did not inform the then director of the Immigrants and Borders Service (SEF), Cristina Gatões, nor did he allow it to be recorded in the initial report of what happened that “physical force” was needed to handcuff Ihor Homeniuk and that he was then left manacled and lying unattended for eight hours.
“He wanted to prevent disciplinary proceedings from being brought against those inspectors,” Judge Hortense Marques emphasised, considering that the version presented by António Sérgio Henriques of ‘not knowing’ and forgetting what had happened at the time “borders on the ridiculous”.
Judge Marques added that although the Public Prosecutor’s Office didn’t accuse Henriques of knowing that the three inspectors had assaulted Ihor Homeniuk, he was made aware of what happened on the night that Homeniuk died.
The same court acquitted two other former SEF inspectors, accused of negligent homicide, but found that two security guards working at the Temporary Installation Centre (EECIT) at the time were doing so ‘unlawfully’. They were handed six month jail sentences, suspended for one year on payment of €500 to an association that supports victims of crime.
Ihor Homeniuk, 40, died of asphyxiation on March 12, 2020 after being brutally beaten and left lying and handcuffed in an EECIT room by three SEF inspectors.
Duarte Laja, Luís Silva and Bruno Sousa were sentenced in 2021 by the Lisbon Central Criminal Court, to nine years in prison for aggravated physical harm (death) and are currently serving their sentences.
The Portuguese state finally compensated Ihor Homeniuk’s family to the tune of €800,000, and the shameful case prompted the disbandment of SEF altogether.
According to Lusa, António Sérgio Henriques has not accepted his conviction and is planning to appeal.
José Gaspar Schwalbach, the lawyer however who represented Ihor Homeniuk’s family throughout this terrible process, told reporters today: “I leave this trial with the sincere feeling that justice has been done.”
In Schwalbach’s opinion, today’s sentencing brings closure, finally, for Ihor Homeniuk’s wife and children, so that they can at last mourn him.
natasha.donn@portugalresident.com
Source material: LUSA
