Lawyer warns man on trial for murder: “There are no perfect crimes”
The final allegations of the murder trial of Fernando Valente – the man accused of killing a former lover, seven months pregnant, on October 7, 2023 – took place in Aveiro court yesterday, and this time the public and press were not excluded.
This trial has been high-profile for a number of reasons, not least because the body of Mónica Silva has never been found.
The judge’s decision to hear evidence behind closed doors also caused some distress.
The victim was an ‘escort’; a woman who engaged with men, any number of whom may not have wanted their association with her given public exposure. As it is, the ‘official reason’ (rejected by Ms Silva’s family) was that the court wanted to protect the sensibilities of Ms Silva’s children, and thus hear evidence behind closed doors.
During the course of the trial prosecutors gave chapter and verse on all the incriminating/ circumstantial evidence that implicates Valente, who appears to have compromised his defence by changing his story/ stories numerous times.
Valente has been held under house arrest since shortly after Mónica went missing, and he will now have to wait until July 8 to hear whether the court considers him guilty of her murder/ the profaning of a corpse/ forced abortion and other charges – and whether it agrees with public prosecutors calling for the maximum 25-year sentence.
In the event of a guilty verdict it seems more than likely that Valente will appeal, in which case he may well be allowed to return to house arrest while that moves forwards.
Yesterday, for the first time, Mónica Silva’s eldest child – now aged 15 – entered court to see Fernando Valente in the flesh.
As Correio da Manhã tabloid explains, his testimony had been taken early on in this investigation, and was reproduced in court. The boy recounted how he had heard his mother speaking on telephone with Valente on the day she disappeared. His greatest hope (and that of the family), his aunt told the paper, is that Valente will finally indicate where Mónica Silva’s body is.
Meantime, lawyer António Falé de Carvalho, representing the family, has said “there cannot be perfect crimes. Being able to hide a body does not guarantee a not guilty verdict”.
Carvalho referred to the “innumerous lies” of Fernando Valente while Valente’s lawyer claims the whole case “revolves around indirect evidence” and “presumptions”, and that his client cannot be found guilty on this basis.
Fernando Valente has also said under oath that he does not know what happened to Mónica Silva (who left her children for a coffee one evening, saying she would be back soon) and that he himself did “absolutely nothing to her”. ND
