Prosecutors charged former council chairman Celorico Basto with four offenses of aggravated forgery and four offenses of abuse of power, according to a court source.
According to the Porto District Attorney’s website, a secretary of the same parish, who was not named in the publication, is also charged with two crimes of forgery and two crimes of abuse of power.
In the same process, the buyer of the land plot, who is interested in its legalization, and the technician who “made efforts to legalize it”, are accused.
According to the January 31 indictment ruling, both will face charges for allegedly “committing an aggravated crime of perjury, two crimes of falsifying documents, and a crime of abuse of power.”
The prosecutor’s office considered that “in order to formalize its acquisition and register it in his favor, and then be able to build on it and carry out other urban operations, the defendant purchaser of the land plot needs the volost council to certify that his land was once crossed by a road, though it never happened.”
According to the indictment, “the defendant at the time, the chairman of the parish council, in reply to the request which the defendant-purchaser made to him in this sense on October 17, 2016, testified that from time to time such land was crossed by a road, knowing full well that such a statement was incorrect. in terms of content.”
Prosecutors also indicated that on April 7, 2017, “at the urging of the interested buyer, the defendants, who at the time were the chairman and secretary of the parish council, signed a declaration on behalf of the municipality that the defendant-buyer had ceded the land to the community. domain, although this has never been done. successfully”.
It also states that on April 27, 2017, “at the request of the same customer, [os dois autarcas] signed a declaration on behalf of the municipality certifying that the declaration of October 17, 2016 was duly issued by the parish council and signed by the chairman after review and approval by the executive, although in fact it was not approved by the executive or the intervention of any of its elements.
Lusa tried unsuccessfully to obtain from the Porto District Attorney’s Office the identification of the municipality targeted by the process.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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