Over three years since a shocking BBC investigation exposed extreme cases of police brutality in the Lisbon neighbourhood of Cova da Moura (click here), the trial of 17 PSP agents accused of crimes of torture, kidnapping, qualified injury and offences to physical integrity “aggravated by hatred and racial discrimination” has finally got underway.
As reports agree, this could be a milestone for the way in which it challenges police treatment of young black people in this country – or it could fall apart.
Certainly, the first testimony by one of the PSP agents in the dock has shown that he “doesn’t concur” with the way in which the prosecution has presented the case.
Says Lusa, “all the other accused intend to make declarations at the beginning of the trial” which centres on the day in February 2015 when six young Cape Verdian youths claim they were subjected to a hideous attack in Alfragide police station condoned by every police agent present (click here).
According to the Public Ministry, the PSP agents – who at the time were part of a crack intervention team – “beat the six victims, offending their physical integrity, treating them in a vexatory, humiliating and degrading way, as well as inciting hatred, discrimination and racial violence”.
Prosecutors further consider that the police agents “took pleasure in causing (the young men’s) suffering”.
Amnesty International has representative Catarina Prata attending the trial who told reporters that one of her main concerns is to not to see the case “tainted” by procedural failings.
It is a trial with “tremendous historical potential”, she said, not only because an accusation based on torture is “unprecedented” but because Amnesty International argues (along with the UN committee against torture) that “the legal definition of torture should include discrimination”, in whatever way it is manifested.
But if the opening statements by the first defendant are anything to go by, the Public ministry’s case is not going to get an easy ride.
The defendant (not named) denied accusations that he submitted the first victim to racial abuse, and “justified” the two-day time lag between arresting all the alleged victims and taking them before a judge, citing “procedural matters, the need to take some of the young men to hospital and the furore the incident caused”.
The trial – which almost didn’t get to court and has had to fight every step of the way (click here) – continues.
natasha.donn@algarveresident.com
