The Supreme Court (STJ) rejected the request for the release of Iraqi brothers accused by the Public Prosecution Service (MP) of war crimes and membership of a terrorist organization, who have been in protective custody for more than a year.
The habeas corpus presented by lawyer Vítor Carreto claimed that the preventive detention of Ammar Ameen and Yasir Ameen, inmates in Monsanto prison since September 2, 2021, was illegal because the one-year period had passed before the charges were filed, which was just notified to the defendants’ representative on September 5, 2022 (and announced publicly by the Member of Parliament).
“Given the arrest that took place on 09-02-2021, it is concluded that the withholding of the indictment on 09-05-2022 was improvised and that the suspects are in unlawful detention”, can be read in the request for release filed with the Supreme and to which Lusa had access. In addition to habeas corpus, the complaint of the MP’s prosecution of September 5 was also filed, despite the order of the public prosecutor of September 2.
However, the examining magistrate of the STJ rejected the request, as the documents submitted were not certified and could not come to the conclusion that the indictment had been completed after September 2, so that the one-year period would not have been met. for preventive detention.
The October 12 judgment, signed by defense attorneys Ernesto Vaz Pereira, Lopes da Mota, Conceição Gomes and Nuno A. Gonçalves, also relied on information sent about the case by the judge hearing the case.
“If the information sent to us by the court ensures that the indictment was filed on 09/02/2022, and if those documents cannot contradict such a claim, it is necessary to add the date of 09/02/2022 to close as the date of the indictment”states in the decision, refusing that the ‘habeas corpus’ could be used for an audit or ‘forensic verification’ of the trial and that the illegality of the arrest should be current.
In that sense, the verdict defended that it “without any room for doubt” did not grant the request of the defense of the two Iraqi brothers, summing up that “there was no unlawful arrest”.
However, the defense of Ammar Ameen and Yasir Ameen has already protested the decision and lodged a complaint and appeal with the Constitutional Court, claiming the nullity of the STJ ruling, as there was a violation of the European Convention on Human Rights. the Rights of Man.
In the document that Lusa had access to, lawyer Vítor Carreto underlined that: “The STJ is responsible for adhering to the principle of unofficial investigation” and that he should therefore have instructed the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DCIAP) to certify the date and time of the indictment and forensic verification of the computer to which the MP was sent.
The defense also invoked the unconstitutionality of some articles of the Code of Criminal Procedure, on the grounds of violation of the right of access to justice.
According to the DCIAP, the investigation examined the activities of the accused as members of the self-declared Islamic State, in the Al Hisbah (Religious Police) and Al Amniyah (Intelligence Services) divisions during the occupation of Iraq by that terrorist organization, between 2014 and 2016. .
The two Iraqis, who had been in Portugal since March 2017, have been in protective custody since September last year, when they were detained by the judicial police.
Source: DN
