Deputy of former Minister of Justice abused two children in a religious cult. The leader spoke

“Normally”, Abreu dos Santos was not close to the children who “play” in the rituals of the “Orixás – Ilê Axé Omô Oxum” cult, in Corroios, says the cult leader. Lawyer has already given up on the former deputy of the former Minister of Justice.

The former deputy of the former Minister of Justice Catarina Sarmento e Castro, currently on suspicion of sexual abuse of children and production and sharing of child pornography, allegedly sexually abused two children in a space considered sacred, in a terreiro in the municipality of Seixal.

According to information provided by , Paulo Abreu dos Santos I regularly attended the cult of the “Orixás – Ilê Axé Omô Oxum”, which operates in Corroios and hosts ceremonies associated with a religious practice of African origin, the Afro-Brazilian religion of Candomblé, based on the belief in deities known as orishasseen as intermediaries between human beings and the divine.

The house of worship attended by Abreu dos Santos, suspected of more than 500 crimes of child pornography and two crimes of child abuse, is being investigated by the PJ.

Alexandrina Rodriguesleader of the Ilê Axé Omo Oxum community with open activity since 2007 as a religious organization, guarantees that he has never received complaints and that, during the rituals, Abreu dos Santos “normally” wasn’t around minorsbut that “there were children playing, as there always have been”. And it will not open an internal investigation, as Lisbon Law School or the law firm Ana Bruno & Associados announced.

“I’m waiting for [as autoridades] Tell me something too, okay? I don’t have any information yet, but I also don’t have to do any investigations. I leave the investigation to them.”

According to several newspaper sources, Paulo Abreu dos Santos invested a lot of money in the cult. He is considered by some to be the right-hand man of the “Alexandrian mother”. But all sources say they are surprised.

The minister’s former deputy, like some of his family members, had a long-standing involvement with the community and became an “orixá” in 2012, carrying out traditional rituals, a year before registering with the Bar Association.

The Judiciary Police seized a cell phone and a computer, which have yet to be examined, which means that the total number of victims and how the crimes occurred remain to be determined.

Even so, the authorities will have already seen videos found on the suspect’s cell phone, which they would document — facts that Paulo Abreu dos Santos admitted, saying there were “only” two. The ages of the victims mentioned vary between 4 and 14 years old. Hundreds of images were seized.

The investigation also points to the presence, in some ceremonies, of needy children from institutionswhich raises the possibility that there are victims originating in these contexts.

Furthermore, one of the videos analyzed by the authorities suggests that a third person may have participated in the recording, according to the CM.

However, Marco Antão, the lawyer of Paulo Abreu dos Santos, renounced his defenseinvoking “conscientious objection”, in a decision that, according to the text, was influenced by the nature of the crimes in question.