Beja Court sentences duo to 22 years for third time for double homicide in Baleizão
The two defendants were sentenced to 22 years in prison for killing a German elderly couple in Baleizão, in a third ruling by Beja Court.
Third sentence of 22 years for the homicide of the German couple in Baleizão
Beja Court handed down its third ruling this afternoon in the case of the homicide of an elderly German couple in Baleizão, in the municipality of Beja: 22 years in prison, in cumulative sentences, for each of the two defendants. According to alentejoilustrado.pt, the sentence is identical to that applied in the two previous rulings, both annulled by the Évora Court of Appeal (TRE).
The defendants — a 57-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman — were sentenced for two counts of simple homicide and one count of qualified theft. The court also upheld the obligation for them to pay 30,000 euros in compensation to the victims' family.
"The court had no doubts"
During this afternoon's session, judge Ana Baptista, president of the panel, was direct regarding the conviction formed: "The court had no doubts that the facts occurred as described." The magistrate based the ruling on the defendant's statements at the beginning of the trial, on testimony to preserve memory from her mother, on the statements of various witnesses, and on documentary and expert evidence.
Ana Baptista further stressed that "the absence of other witnesses", apart from the defendants and the victims already deceased, "does not mean that the court cannot form a conviction about what happened". The panel considered that the defendants "displayed contempt for human life" and never demonstrated repentance.
What was established as proved
The court established as fact that the defendants were taken in at the home of the German couple as they had no other place to stay. Days later, they attacked the 78-year-old man and the 71-year-old woman with an iron bar and abandoned them at the residence. The defendant later returned to take the car and the victims' bank cards, which the couple used freely — proof, according to the judge, that he knew the elderly couple "were dead".
The homicides are believed to have occurred on 16 April 2023 at the couple's estate in Baleizão, but the bodies were only discovered nearly a month later, on 11 May, after a son of the victims, resident in Germany, raised the alarm.
Judicial process marked by annulments
This is the third ruling handed down by Beja Court in the same case. The first, dated 3 April 2024, was partially annulled by the TRE following an appeal by the defence, for having used "prohibited assessment evidence" associated with the defendants' statements in the first judicial interrogation. The second, from 6 November 2025, was likewise annulled: the TRE concluded, in a comparative analysis, that this ruling "does not represent a true reconsideration of the case, but rather a substantial reproduction of the previously annulled ruling".
The defendants have been at liberty since 13 May last year, the date when the maximum two-year period of pre-trial detention was exceeded without the case being concluded.
Defence announces new appeal
The defendants' lawyer, Pedro Pestana, immediately announced the intention to appeal: "Given that the ruling maintained everything as it was, we will lodge a third appeal against this decision of the first instance and bring the case again to the Court of Appeal."
On the part of the family of the German victims, no family member wished to make statements after the ruling was read.
Source: Google News PT — Crime (pt)