THREE MEN who were found guilty of the murder of John Turner and sentenced to 22 years in prison on October 27, 2006 have been released.
Ioan Rusus, Dumitru Pekura and Vasile Cucicea appealed against the Loulé court ruling and under the new penal code, their status reverted back to being in preventive custody.
A suspect cannot be held for more than 18 months in preventive custody and they must be released. Évora court ordered their release on Friday and they were freed on Saturday.
The killing took place on April 27, 2005 when John Turner and his wife Helen were surprised in their villa in Sobradinho de Alfeição near Loulé by a gang of five men who forced their way in.
The couple were tied up and John Turner was dealt several blows and strangled. The men escaped with the Turner’s BMW and Mercedes, jewellery and other valuables. Three were arrested in August, 2005.
Violent crime
The two other suspects have never been located by the authorities and it is believed that they fled the country. The three defendants maintained that one of the other gang members, Gheorge Beuca, was solely responsible for Turner’s death.
International arrest warrants were issued but there have been no results. The identity of the fifth man is unknown.
The case attracted a great deal of attention and sent shockwaves through the expatriate community in the Algarve. There was also controversy due to the confusion over the victim’s cause of death. The original autopsy was carried out in Faro deemed the cause of death as a heart attack but this was later discredited by two further autopsies carried out in England and Portugal, which stated that the injuries John Turner suffered had directly caused his death, which was recorded as being asphyxiation due to strangulation.
When Judge Espírito Santo sentenced the trio, he emphasised the “considerable violence and dangerousness demonstrated by the defendants and the deception shown to conceal evidence of the crime and its perpetrators”.
In addition to their 22-year sentence for robbery and first degree murder, the judge ordered Resus, aged 21, and Pekura, aged 28, be deported
The Resident contacted Helen Turner and she had not been informed about their release. She said she could not understand how this was justice. Their release under the new penal code rules, which came into effect on the same day that they were freed, is likely to cause strong reactions among Algarve residents.
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