The MP prosecutor maintained that these five defendants should be convicted of dozens of crimes, whose legal assets “were blatantly violated on multiple occasions with indifference by different legal regimes, for personal and political purposes, with and without financial consequences”.
“It is understood that in the case of these five defendants there are not just current circumstances or mere episodic temptations, but a true pattern of action so that, in our opinion, they should serve effective prison sentences”, concluded the prosecutor.
As for the remaining defendants, the MP decided to subject them to the court’s criteria regarding the choice of measure and the specific determination of the sentence.
The Secret Adjustment case, which began to be judged in November 2023, has 65 defendants, including several mayors and former mayors, as well as four sports clubs and their respective presidents, who are responsible for hundreds of crimes of corruption, embezzlement, abuse of powers, influence peddling, falsification of documents, violation of secrecy, economic participation in business, malfeasance and possession of a prohibited weapon.
The case resulted from an investigation that culminated in June 2017 with the arrest of seven people, including Hermínio Loureiro who, shortly afterwards, would suspend his mandate in that body, and the then president of the Chamber of Oliveira de Azeméis, Isidro Figueiredo.
The process is centered on the Oliveira de Azeméis Chamber and Hermínio Loureiro, who presided over that municipality in the district of Aveiro between 2009 and 2016.
The prosecution claims that some of the defendants used amounts from that municipality’s working funds to pay for meals and other personal expenses, as well as expenses for the municipal headquarters of a political party.
The MP also talks about the “vitiation of competitive procedures” and the “use of influence by members of the municipal executive” before the management of the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training and a Private Social Solidarity Institution to “implement professional internships” for the children of a party supporter.
The researchers also detected evidence of favoritism of a businessman by the Estarreja, Matosinhos and Gondomar councils in the public procurement procedures of 2016 and 2017, having also found that the Albergaria-a-Velha Council carried out a private project, for the benefit of a resident, with the costs “diluted in a public works contract whose procedure ran in parallel”.