Year: 2017

The temporary reintroduction of border control at the Portuguese borders during the visit of His Holiness Pope Francis between 00:00 hours on May 10, 2017 and 00:00 hours on May 14, 2017, at the air, sea and land borders.

All citizens who travel in or out of Portugal by Air: Airports / Aerodromes; Sea: Ports / Marinas or Land: Roads – Rail / Rivers must hold a valid travel document, namely, passport or citizen’s card, at the border control carried out by SEF, the Portuguese Immigration and Borders Service.

According to the Council of Ministers Resolution, the nine authorized border crossings / Land routes will be as follows::

a) Valença -Viana do Castelo, exit of BridgeTuy-Valença – connection IP1 -A3, in Valença, and railway station of Valença;

b) Vila Verde da Raia -Chaves, exit of A52, connection with A24, km 0, by the roundabout;

c) Quintanilha -Bragança, exit of International Bridge IP4/E 82, exit to Quintanilha or by the Joint Police and Customs Cooperation Centre at N 218 -1 Quintanilha;

d) Vilar Formoso -Guarda at the borderline, Border Square, by the Joint Police and Customs Cooperation Centre, N 16/E80, connection 620 Fuentes de Õnoro, Spain, including the old border, N 332, km 62,7, the railway station of Vilar Formoso and the access through Truck Parking, truck route, N16, Vilar Formoso;

e) Termas de Monfortinho -Castelo Branco, N 239 N 240 junction in Termas de Monfortinho;

f) Marvão -Portalegre, borderline, Marvão, N 521 connection to Valência de Alcântara at IC 13 Marvão and railway station of Beirã/Marvão, in Beirã;

g) Caia -Elvas, exit of A6 km 158, connection Caia -Elvas, by the Tourist Office, Elvas;

h) Vila Verde de Ficalho -Beja, by the borderline, connection A 495 Rosal de la Frontera with IP 8, Serpa;

i) Vila Real de Santo António – Border Square, km 131 da A22, International Bridge of Guadiana -Castro Marim, including river quay of Vila Real de Santo António.

On 19^th April the Foreigners and Borders Service (SEF) detained a foreign citizen in pursuance of a European arrest warrant, issued in order for him to serve a prison sentence in Italy for the commission of extortion and criminal association crimes.

The person was intercepted in Lisbon, in connection with the warrant issued by the Italian authorities, which was pending on him, to serve a six-month and one-month prison term., resulting from his earlier conviction in Italy.

The 43-year-old detainee has appeared at the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the Lisbon Court of Appeal regarding his return to Italy to serve his sentence.

A hundred firefighters and at least three dozen vehicles from several corporations are fighting a fire at Trajouce, Sintra’s council.

The fire broke out on Monday night (24^th April) at the Tratolixo plant and, according to SIC-Notícias, is consuming part of the Tratolixo plant.

Tratolixo is an intermunicipal solid waste treatment company, created by the Association of Municipalities of Cascais, Mafra, Oeiras and Sintra.

Commander Pedro Araújo, of the Voluntary Firefighters, told the station there are houses nearby but none are at risk of being hit by the fire despite the wind that is felt.

The GNR Port Territorial Command recovered the components of cars in Trofa and Vila do Conde, in an operation that began on February 17 and ended on April 12, according to GNR.

“The operation, which is part of a process of investigation into theft and receipt of stolen vehicles, has already been carried out in four searches carried out in warehouses and in the commercial establishment of used car parts.”

This operation had the collaboration of two experts from the Judiciary Police in the identification of the components of more than 300 stolen automobiles. The investigation has detected components of more than 300 high-end cars, with the most notable being the BMW, Renault, Peugeot and Citrõen brands, stolen during the period between 2011 and 2017 but particularly during the period June 2015 and February 2017 .

Also according to the GNR, this action “required a detailed analysis of the provenance of the thousands of components found, such as engines, gearboxes, central units, seats, panoramic roofs, axles, seats and doors.”

The value of the vehicles that have been proven as stolen will be about five million euros, and the procedures for delivery of the goods now recovered to their owners has started.

The Judiciary Police announced on Friday the arrest of a 46-year-old man suspected of having committed a forest fire crime on Tuesday 18^th April 2017 in Barcelos.

In a statement, the PJ says that the man “has a criminal record for identical facts.”

According to police, the man whilst under the influence of alcohol started the fire “using a lighter, in a wood near his residence, also in the vicinity of other dwellings.”

The flames, according to the PJ, only did not reach greater proportions “due to the rapid intervention of the firemen”.

A 52-year-old man was detained in Coimbra by the Judiciary Police, caught in the act of downloading child pornography.

A source from the PJ’s Center Directorate told the Lusa news agency that the suspect, a health and safety technician at work, and without a criminal record, was detained on Wednesday 19th April  and subject to a term of Identity and Residence on the same day by the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP) of Coimbra.

The same source added that the investigation was based on a complaint from an international non-governmental organization that prosecutes users of child pornography.

In the context of the investigation, the PJ detected in the computer systems used by the suspect, several files with pornographic content involving minors, that were obtained through downloads from the Internet.

In the course of the operation, a computer, a tablet and a hard disk were used for this purpose.

“The Judiciary Police presented for the first judicial interrogation a 43-year-old male defendant, a native of Seixal, Setúbal,” said a statement read by the president of the Judicial Court of the District of Funchal this Friday.

Paulo Barreto added that “after questioning that began at approximately 06.05 pm and ended at 19.45 hours, the defendant was indicted for the crime of qualified homicide” and was subject to the preventive custody measure.

On Saturday, 36-year-old Ilidia Macedo was stabbed to death in the house where she lived, in the Ajuda area, in the municipality of Funchal, allegedly by her former companion, and died at the scene.

The suspect is Valter Moreno, 43, a former athletic trainer at Sporting and currently a personal trainer and race teacher.

According to a police source, the suspect “tried to flee” and “attacked the Public Security Police (PSP)” who were summoned to the scene, which immobilized him firing a shot that hit him in the knee.

Police source told Jornel de Noticais that the alleged murderer was also found stabbed, having been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit of Dr. Nélio Mendonça Hospital in Funchal because of those injuries.

The crime occurred at 5 o’clock in the apartment of Idília Macedo, where he had recently moved, after the separation of Valter Moreno.

Last year, an average of seven children a day were reported as mistreated. That is, 2719 signs of physical and psychological abuse were made where children were victims at juvenile committees. These are preliminary data from the annual report of the National Commission for the Promotion of the Rights and Protection of Children and Young People (CNPDPCJ), as reported in the Diario de Noticias (DN).

Despite the slight decrease in cases compared to 2015, the situations that arrive at the commissions show more and more cruelty in the aggressions, with objects like electric cables, tires, whips or metal spoons, being used. And there were 360 ​​children from 0 to 5 years who were victims of this type of beating. “There has been a dangerous increase in the exposure of minors to cruelty such as domestic violence,” explained Dora Alvarez of the technical team of the National Commission.

In Portugal, more than 12,000 children are exposed to behaviour that affect their well-being, namely domestic violence, and this is the reason for a 30% of the signs of minors in danger made to CPCJ.

In the first quarter of this year alone, the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) opened 100 criminal cases for domestic violence against minors, more than a third of the total number of inquiries carried out last year (352), according to data from the Attorney General’s Office. DN. In the first three months, 15 charges were deducted. In all in 2016 54 were deducted.

Physical maltreatment occurred more in the 11 to 14 age group, with 541 cases, followed by the range of 6 to 10 with 523, 15 to 18 with 442 and 0 to 5 years with 360 cases. Corporal punishment also increased in 2016 – 100 cases compared to 96 in 2015.

The majority of victims of the 832 psychological maltreatment were girls (50.5%), with the exception of the age group of 6 to 10 years, in which there were more boys (245) to be humiliated or offended by their parents. Most of the assaults were reported by hospitals.

In all, the PSP have identified about 50 people and seized 200 individual doses of laurel leaves that were being sold as fake drugs. In the year 2016, for example, there were almost 800 counts of illegal street vending in the Baixa – the other common misconduct here is misleading advertising.

According to the PSP the legal framework does not allow us to do much more than this as this activity is misdemeanour.

About 80% of what is sold on the street in Baixa is pressed laurel leaves “, explained the Commander of the 1st Division of the PSP of Lisbon, Paulo Flor, at the start of a campaign to create greater awareness of this issue; an initiative of PSP with the support of the Parish Council of Santa Maria Maior.

We have received many complaints from people complaining about insecurity and bad environment. Also because many of those individuals have aggressive behaviour, “explained Miguel Coelho, president of the parish council of Santa Maria Maior.

Comment

This is a subject that Safe Communities has raised several times with the PSP in Lisbon and Faro. In a survey undertaken by Safe Communities Algarve three years ago over half of some 135 tourists interviewed in Praia da Rocha, Algarve had been offered fake drugs. The fact that this activity is only under the law a misdemeanour, allows this to continue, as there no effect deterrent.

On 9^th April at 22.05 hrs the PSP Lisbon Metropolitan Command, through the Division of Criminal Investigation, Lisbon, arrested two men and one woman, aged between 30 and 49, in Olivais for drug trafficking.

During the operation the following were seized:

– 4,230 Individual doses of Heroin;
– 190 Individual doses of Cocaine;
– 38 Individual doses of Hashish;
– 7,620 Euros and 1 precision balance.

The detainees, with criminal records related to the same type of illicit activities, were presented at the Central Instance, 1st Criminal Investigation Section of the Court of the District of Lisbon, for 1st judicial interrogation, having been applied the coercion measure of Pre-trial detention