Court of Appeal orders reopening of case against two PSP officers accused of perjury in Odair Moniz case
The Lisbon Court of Appeal has ordered the reopening of the preliminary investigation phase in the case against two PSP officers accused of false statements in the Odair Moniz matter.
Court of Appeal reactivates investigation against PSP officers in Odair Moniz case
The Lisbon Court of Appeal has ordered the reopening of the preliminary investigation phase in the case involving two PSP officers, Rui Pedro Machado and Daniel Nabais, accused by the Public Prosecution Service of false statements in connection with the Odair Moniz case, according to Correio da Manhã.
The case had been filed in February of this year by an investigating judge. The magistrate found that the Public Prosecution Service investigation had made a serious error: the two officers were questioned as witnesses when sufficient evidence already existed to constitute them as suspects. The investigation also concerned the possible falsification of the Notice of Incident concerning Odair Moniz's death, which occurred in October 2024.
The Public Prosecution Service appealed the decision to file the case. In July, judges Paula Gonçalves and Maria do Carmo Lourenço gave "partial approval" to the prosecution, determining that the preliminary decision should be replaced by another that enumerates the substantiated facts and unsubstantiated facts, accompanied by the respective reasoning.
However, this requirement should not alter the direction of the filing, according to the dissenting opinion of judge Jorge de Castro. Castro emphasised that requiring the first instance to separate substantiated facts from unsubstantiated ones does not resolve the central question: could the PSP officers have been questioned as witnesses when evidence already existed to constitute them as suspects?
In the same case, despite suspicions of falsification of the PSP Notice—suspicions that were filed away—the Public Prosecution Service did not conduct searches of police facilities, namely the server, to ascertain who had access to the document in question.
Source: Correio da Manhã