Appeal court reduces sentence of former SEF director who protected officers who killed Ukrainian
Lisbon Court of Appeal has reduced the sentence of the former head of Borders in Lisbon, convicted of protecting the officers who killed Ihor Homeniuk in 2020.
Former Borders director convicted of abuse of power in Homeniuk case
Lisbon Court of Appeal has reduced the suspended sentence of the former SEF official responsible for shielding three officers from disciplinary proceedings after they killed Ukrainian citizen Ihor Homeniuk at Lisbon Airport in 2020. The decision was made on Thursday, according to a ruling which Lusa had access to, and reported by RTP.
António Sérgio Henriques, aged around 60, was head of Borders in Lisbon at the time of Homeniuk's death. In January 2025, Lisbon Local Criminal Court had convicted him to two years and six months of suspended imprisonment for the crime of denial of justice and misconduct in office. Following an appeal, the Court of Appeal changed the crime classification to abuse of power, reducing the sentence to one year and ten months, equally suspended for the same period.
The decision was not unanimous. One of the three appeal judges advocated for the defendant's acquittal, arguing that the Public Prosecutor's accusations did not explicitly state that Henriques "had knowledge of the circumstances of" Ihor Homeniuk's death.
The same ruling confirmed the conviction to six months of suspended sentence of two security guards at the Space Equivalent to a Temporary Installation Centre (EECIT) at Humberto Delgado Airport. The security guards had restrained the Ukrainian citizen, aged 40, with adhesive tape on his legs and arms the night before his death, contributing to the "escalation of the situation" and to the spreading of the false rumour that the victim was violent, as the Lisbon Local Criminal Court established in January 2025.
Ihor Homeniuk died from asphyxiation on 12 March 2020, after having been beaten and left handcuffed and lying in a room at the EECIT by three inspectors from the then Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF), which was shut down in October 2023. The Ukrainian citizen had been prevented from entering Portugal at the border at Lisbon Airport.
The three inspectors — Duarte Laja, Luís Silva and Bruno Sousa — were convicted in 2021 by Lisbon Central Criminal Court to nine years in prison for qualified assault on physical integrity, aggravated by resulting in death. They were placed under house arrest in March 2020, whilst still under investigation, and surrendered in August 2023 at Évora Correctional Facility to serve the remainder of their sentence, after the conviction became final. They were released on conditional liberty at the end of March 2026, having been removed from the civil service.
In the secondary proceeding that led to the conviction of the former head of Borders and the two security guards, two other inspectors accused of negligent homicide by omission were acquitted.
Source: RTP