The Supreme Court (STJ) ordered the state to pay 15,000 euros to a man who was provisionally arrested for 325 days on charges of raping his minor daughter, but was eventually acquitted.
The STJ’s judgment of 2 February, which Lusa saw this Friday, partially allowed the defendant’s appeal, setting the author’s compensation at 15,000 euros in compensation for a prison sentence that turned out to be inappropriate.
On July 15, 2015, a 59-year-old farmer was arrested on suspicion of committing crimes of rape and sexual abuse of a dependent minor, after which he was placed in preventive detention.
The defendant was acquitted by the Viseu court and released on June 3, 2016 after spending 325 days in prison.
During the trial, the defendant denied committing the facts, which was confirmed by the minor’s sister, who spent the night with her and ate mainly her food. In addition, the panel of judges did not have the opportunity to hear the minor, since the recording of her testimony for future memory was illegible, and she refused to testify in court.
After the trial, the offender filed a lawsuit against the state, seeking compensation in the amount of about 212,000 euros in compensation for the material and non-pecuniary damage he suffered as a result of his preventive detention.
The court of first instance considered that the material damage to the plaintiff was not proven, but established compensation for non-pecuniary damage in the amount of 17,000 euros.
Following an appeal by the plaintiff and the deputy, the Court of Appeal of Coimbra changed the amount of compensation by ten thousand euros.
The author again appealed this decision to the STJ, which considered the amount to be “insufficient” to compensate the damage caused to the author and increased the compensation to 15,000 euros.
“Such an unavoidable compensation amount allows the applicant to receive at one moment an amount of money that his ability and motivation to work, with a high probability, will never reach in life, being able to use it at his own discretion. thus obtaining what he otherwise would not have achieved, or satisfying his personal needs in a broader sense, ”the verdict says.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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