Defense for the 13 soldiers who refused to board the NRP Mondego deemed on Monday that the Navy’s disciplinary process was “mortally wounded,” accusing the Navy Chief of Staff of a “dominant and discriminatory” attitude.
“When an appellate body in disciplinary terms publicly takes a position, obviously (…) this disciplinary process is mortally wounded, because no Navy officer would dare in his findings of this disciplinary process to contradict the conclusions that the Admiral has already advanced,” Garcia’s lawyer said. Pereira representing 13 soldiers.
At the entrance to the premises of the Military Judicial Police in Lisbon, not far from the headquarters of the Ministry of Defense, García Pereira criticized the public position taken by the Chief of the Naval Staff of Gouveia y Melo in the Mondego case and emphasized that in Portugal the “principle presumption of innocence” according to which “everything must be done according to the rules”.
For the lawyer for the 13 soldiers PJM began hearing, it is “unbearable” that “men who take pride in the uniform they wear, who have an outstanding record” and who have “torn praise” due to their dedication to service, with them “treated in a pitiful manner, with an arrogant, discriminatory, irritating and humiliating attitude from the highest person in charge of the navy.”
“This is incomprehensible, and at least lawyers have not only the right, but also the duty not to kneel before such violations of the law and the Constitution,” he stressed.
The 13 soldiers who refused to board the Mondego, claiming lack of security, are being heard by the PJM in Lisbon this Monday as part of a criminal investigation following the involvement of the navy.
13 soldiers will be heard at the PJM facilities in Restelo, Lisbon in the morning (10:00) and afternoon (14:00).
Accompanying the military will be lawyers Paulo Graça and García Pereira, while it has already become known that the defense disputes the version of events spread by the Navy, and claims that there were “evidence that was erased.”
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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