“Secret Adjustment”. Hermínio Loureiro and Isidro Figueiredo sentenced to suspended sentences

The two former mayors were convicted, together with a contractor, of crimes of malfeasance in the award of works for the Cucujães municipal sports complex, the Ossela Municipal Library and the Oliveira de Azeméis Music Academy.

Former presidents of the Chamber of Oliveira de Azeméis Hermínio Loureiro e Isidro Figueiredo were sentenced, respectively, to suspended sentences of two years and eight months and two years and six months, for malfeasance in the illegal award of contracts.

The information was provided to Lusa this Wednesday by a judicial source, following the ruling on the case, handed down on Tuesday by the Court of Santa Maria da Feira, in the district of Aveiro.

O Secret Adjustment process resulted from an investigation that culminated, in June 2017, with the arrest of seven peopleincluding the then vice-president of the Portuguese Football Federation, who shortly afterwards took office in that body.

The panel of judges condemned Loureiro for committing a crime of malfeasance by a political office holder, relating to works on the municipal sports complex de Cucujães, in November 2016, when he was president of the Oliveira de Azeméis Chamber.

The court imposed the penalty of two years and eight months in prisonsuspended in its execution for the same period, to the former deputy in the Assembly of the Republic, elected by the PSD, former president of the Portuguese Professional Football League and president of the Chamber of Oliveira de Azeméis, district of Aveiro, between 2009 and 2016.

Figueiredo, who succeeded Hermínio Loureiro as president of the municipality of Oliveira de Azeméis, was convicted of committing, from January to February 2017, a crime of malfeasance by a political office holder, relating to works from the Municipal Library of Ossela and Music Academy by Oliveira de Azeméis.

The former mayor was sentenced to two years and six months in prisonsentence suspended in its execution for an equal period.

The third defendant convicted in this case is Amadeu Gomes Martinspartner and manager of a company dedicated to civil construction, to whom the group of judges applied the suspended sentence of three years and four monthsfor two crimes of malfeasance.

The contractor was convicted of committing, in November 2016, a crime of malfeasance by a political office holder, relating to the works of the sports complex municipal council of Cucujães, under penalty of two years and six months in prison.

He was also convicted of committing, from January to February 2017, another crime of malfeasance by a political office holder, in the works of the Municipal Library de Ossela and the Academia da Música, sentenced to two years and six months in prison.

In legal heightsthe court decided to apply to this contractor a single sentence of three years and four months in prison, for the two crimes of malfeasance, committed in co-authored with Hermínio Loureiro and Isidro Figueiredoin carrying out those projects.

Both Isidro Figueiredo and the contractor were acquitted of the other crimes of malfeasance by a political office holder of which they were accused.

The same judicial source also told Lusa that “the other five defendantss in the process were, all of them, acquitted of all crimes that were imputed to them.”

In a note published on its website, the Porto District Attorney General’s Office (PGDP) states that, under the terms of the ruling, “verbal determination was proven to the contractor defendant by each of the defendants holding political office, to carrying out public works”, in 2016 and 2017, in a sports complex and municipal facilities in Oliveira de Azeméis.

“Carrying out the work continued without any procedure contractual and without forecast or budgetary allocation, aiming to satisfy personal interests related to the promotion of public image of the defendants holding political positions and with the granting of a undue economic benefit to the construction company and its manager”, explains PGDP.