Madeira businessman acquitted of fraud in diamond business

A Madeira businessman accused of two crimes of qualified derision involving a diamond business, valued at about 82,000 euros, was this Wednesday 11th April acquitted by the Court of the Region of Madeira.

The trial began on October 18 last year at the Madeira Central Instance in Funchal with the 53-year-old defendant from Machico allegedly cheating two emigrants in a diamond business fraud in South Africa in 2013.

The Prosecutor’s allegation alleged that the businessman had persuaded the two Venezuelan investors and residents of Madeira to invest “part of their savings” in the purchase of diamonds extracted from a mine in the city of Kimberley in that country “allegedly belonging to a hypothetical Irish elderly couple.”

Although initially decided to refer to the silence, the defendant ended up giving several versions for the facts of which he was accused.

On March 21, in closing statements, Deputy Attorney General Paulo Oliveira, however, himself asked for acquittal, arguing that he had doubts concerning whether a crime had actually taken place and whether this process “should therefore be a civil trial instead”.

Therefore, the court decided to acquit the defendant of the crimes and also disagreed with the civil claim of the assistants in the order of 99,360 euros, “because to have civil liability there has to be a connection with a crime.”

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