The deputy mayor of Vila Nova de Gaia, Patrocínio Azevedo, who was held in custody during Operation Babel, has resigned from his mandate, the municipality’s leader, socialist Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues, announced on Monday.
The announcement was made in the period leading up to the agenda for the board meeting.
“Last week a request was received from the Vice President which necessarily implies that he be included in the list. The request was accompanied by a letter that I believe I should read and which will remain in the minutes of this chamber meeting” , said Durado Vítor Rodrigues who then read a letter signed by Patrocínio Azevedo in which he resigned.
In the letter, Patrocínio Azevedo, who also resigned from the leadership of the municipal political committee of the PS of Vila Nova de Gaia, reiterates his innocence.
“Even in the face of the total absence of evidence of any wrongdoing, I was arrested and saw the most severe coercive measures applied. So I calmly await the steps of the investigation (…). I am innocent. The alleged crimes involve hypothetical favoritism towards a real estate agency and the exchange of monetary considerations are false,” says the former socialist mayor.
After reading the letter, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues revealed that he had sent on Patrocínio Azevedo, through a lawyer, a “collective but personified position” in which he “openly testified to all the conviction as to the innocence” of the hitherto vice president of the autarchy.
Speaking of “irreparable damage for all reasons and a few more”, the mayor stressed that he believed in Patrocínio Azevedo’s innocence and left messages about the functioning of justice and the system.
“I hope that time will not discredit us life and politics, parties and democracy, because an unjust justice is a justice that distorts democracy (…). I hope that Patrocínio is not a martyr, but that he comes to set an example that what is so propagated as a bulletproof law is actually tainted with many things that seem to want to justify problems where they are not (…). The justice and investigative system needs corrections,” he said.
In an approximately 15-minute statement marking the beginning of the municipal council meeting, Vítor Rodrigues wanted to leave a “word of affection” for Patrocínio Azevedo’s father, Manuel Azevedo, who is president of the parish council of Sandim, Olival, Lever and Crestuma.
“I want you to know that you have a son, that you are an extraordinary being, that you are the victim of a mistake,” he said.
The mayor also criticized the “public staging”, spoke of “TV cameras that were on even before the judicial police arrived” and scoffed at “problems that only exist here”, listing northern mayors targeted by searches and trials .
Been to Luisa Sagueiro [Matosinhos]was Rui Moreira [Porto], this week it was Rui Moreira again. It was the car or I don’t know what hit me (…), it was the president of Maia [Silva Tiago] with possible loss of mandate of something that was finally shown (…), she was now the president of Marco de Canaveses [Cristina Vieira]he referred.
For Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues, the mayors of the North seem to have the only problem.
“We are dealing with a kind of contaminated neighborhood. I hope that it will be shown that the damage done to people and institutions may warrant extra caution, less exhibitionism and more caution,” he concluded.
Patrocínio Azevedo is imprisoned under Operation Babel, as determined by the Porto Criminal Investigation Court announced on May 19. Despite the most severe coercive measure being imposed, he did not resign his mandate immediately.
This main Operation Babel process focuses on “the violation of norms and instruction of urban permit processes in favor of promoters associated with high-density and size projects, involving real estate interests in the order of EUR 300 million, through of offering and accepting monetary compensation”.
The Mayor of Gaia, Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues, announced on May 22, also in a meeting of the College of Mayor and Aldermen, that the vice presidency will now be secured by Councilor Marina Mendes, responsible for the areas of education and social action.
Source: DN
