An educational debate on the smokeless collar case is scheduled for December 19th.

The instructive debate on the anti-smoking collar case, which led to government resignations in 2019, will take place on December 19, a source connected to the trial told Luse this Friday.

According to the same source, the investigation phase, which began in March, is scheduled for 10 a.m. that day at the Central Criminal Investigation Court (TCIC) in Lisbon, although it was scheduled for the following Monday.

Among the 19 defendants (14 people and five companies) are the former Secretary of State for Civil Protection José Arthur Neves and the former President of the National Emergency Management and Civil Protection Authority Murato Nunez, on charges disclosed by the Ministry of State (MP) in July 2022 due to suspicions regarding the purchase of self-defense collars as part of the “Safe Village – Safe People” program, launched after the 2017 forest fires.

Planning for the instructive debate was suspended for some time due to the decision on appeals related to the process, which was pending before the Lisbon Court of Appeal (TRL), and which only arrived on October 31, accepting emails (and other communications) as evidence. ), which were seized and used during the prosecution of the deputy.

At issue were a series of orders issued between November and December 2021 by two then TCIC judges, Carlos Alexandre and Ivo Rosa. On November 30, 2021, Ivo Rosa declared in his order the seizure of emails and other communications of José Arthur Neves and Murato Nunez, among other defendants, as prohibited evidence, although they had already been previously confirmed.

However, the process later passed to Carlos Alexander, who on December 14 of the same year declared the previous order of Ivo Rosa non-existent, that is, he canceled the annulment of this evidence. The deputy appealed the decision of Ivo Rosa, and the two defendants appealed the decision of Carlos Alexandre.

According to the TRL ruling, to which Lusa had access, judges Luis Almeida Gominho, Paulo Barreto Ferreira and Manuel Advinculo Sequeira ultimately “declared the legal non-existence” of Ivo Rosa’s ruling in the part in which he considered prohibited evidence that had already been confirmed in six previous orders.

The case involves alleged crimes related to subsidy fraud, economic involvement in business and abuse of power. The investigation found “criminally significant violations in a number of public procurement procedures” within the framework of the “Safe Village – Safe People” program, co-financed by the Unity Fund, finding that it caused losses to the state in the amount of 364,980 euros, allegedly transferred to the defendants.