Formal complaint on hold as ‘duped drug mule’ pensioner flies home

Visibly shaken by the horror of 12 days in a Dominican jail, Albufeira pensioner Maria Salomé Santos was finally released at the weekend as Portuguese authorities considered a formal complaint about the treatment she received after being erroneously identified as a drug mule trying to smuggle over 50 kilos of cocaine in one of her suitcases.
Maria Salomé told reporters covering her release: “I was badly treated. I didn’t eat for four days.”
Indeed, her daughter told Correio da Manhã newspaper that there were moments during her mother’s ordeal when she wondered whether Maria Salomé would be able to survive at all.
The 70-year-old former school janitor suffers from a heart condition and was reported to have been left without medication for days.
But as Secretary of State for Portuguese Communities Abroad José Cesário pointed out, things could have been worse. Maria Salomé could have been convicted and left in jail for as many as 10 years.
Instead, CCTV footage of events at the airport was carefully studied and, in the end, the Public Prosecutor in Punta Cana agreed: “The arrest of the Portuguese woman was a mistake.” They are now reported to be centring their investigation on two airport workers working for an international drug ring. It was these workers who are thought to have planted the drugs, worth more than €5 million, in Maria Salomé’s baggage.
“The justice system of the Dominican Republic worked,” Cesário told CM.
Meantime, the Albufeira resident is reported to have already received an apology from the Dominican authorities.
According to CM, Maria Salomé is undecided about whether she will be suing for damages.
Undecided too are the Portuguese authorities, said to be considering whether they should advance with a diplomatic protest.
First, writes CM, they want to talk things through with Maria Salomé and her family – and that may not happen until the exhausted pensioner has recovered her strength.
“She has been through a huge psychological and physical trauma,” sister-in-law Zélia Viegas told CM. “Once she is better, then we can celebrate.”