The defense of the defendants in the Saco Azul case showed that they were outraged and disappointed by the decision of the investigating judge to send all the defendants to trial, considering that the evidence presented was devalued.
“The investigating judge did not accept the arguments of Benfica’s defense and discounted all the numerous evidence presented during the investigation, choosing to give priority to some of the evidence collected during the investigation, and even in this regard, assessing the evidence in only one sense and discounting others,” it says in a statement by the lawyers of the accused, to which the CM had access.
“The option (…) greatly angers and disappoints us, especially in light of the evidence presented by Benfica’s defense, which was completely discounted by the investigating judge,” they continue.
The lawyers assure that they will adhere to everything they said during the investigation and at trial in order to achieve an acquittal.
On Tuesday, investigating judge Jorge Bernardes de Melo brought all the accused in the Saco Azul case to trial. During the reading of the order, the judge said there was sufficient evidence that Luis Filipe Vieira was the author of a criminal plan to defraud Benfica of thousands of euros through false invoices.
“The defendants Luis Filipe Vieira and Domingos Soares de Oliveira were not only aware of the scheme – the withdrawal of large sums of money from SAD and the money returned to the club without a trace – but the author of the plan was Luis Filipe Vieira. And then he revealed that they know the plan of Domingos and Miguel Moreira,” he said.
The Court fully affirms the prosecution’s charge, which charges defendants Luis Filipe Vieira, Domingos Soares de Oliveira and Miguel Moreira with a total of three crimes related to qualified tax fraud and 19 crimes related to forgery of documents.
These crimes are accused of being co-authored by the company QuestãoFlexível and the defendant José Bernardes, while the Benfica SAD was convicted of two tax fraud offenses and the Benfica Estádio one tax fraud offense and 19 forgery offenses documents.
Author: Deborah Carvalho This Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Tifany Hawkins, a professional journalist with years of experience in news reporting. I currently work for a prominent news website and write articles for 24NewsReporters as an author. My primary focus is on economy-related stories, though I am also experienced in several other areas of journalism.