Joana Amaral Díaz’s stepmother, Susana Quintas, was acquitted this Monday by the Lisbon Criminal Court of charges that she allegedly over-medicated her husband, Carlos Amaral Díaz.
Reading out the decision, Judge Margarida Alves emphasized that it had not been proven that an excess of tranquilizers was the direct cause of the psychiatrist’s several hospitalizations. Carlos Amaral Diaz died on December 3, 2019, on the way to the hospital after waiting more than two hours for an ambulance to arrive.
The prosecutor’s office asked that Susana Quintas be sentenced “to a non-custodial sentence.”
Joana Amaral Diaz’s stepmother accused of 7 crimes related to causing harm to physical integrity.
The statement of Carlos Amaral Díaz, collected by the Court a year before his death, during the investigation phase, exonerated his wife Susana Quintas, the only defendant in the case of serious and qualified crimes against the psychiatrist. At the third court hearing, the psychiatrist’s youngest daughter suddenly appeared with Joana Amaral Diaz and accused her mother of giving her father too much medication.
A toxicology test showed the doctor had four times the normal amount of benzodiazepines in his blood. Three older children filed a complaint.
“The judge is a very competent and very smart woman to whom I express all my admiration, respect and attention. At this moment I know what I knew before,” said Susana Quintas CM after reading the resolution.
As for the “long years of investigation,” Joana’s stepmother Amaral Diaz says she doesn’t know “to what extent they were.”
Author: Deborah Carvalho
Source: CM Jornal
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