When reading the ruling, which took place this Friday afternoon, the president of the panel of judges said that the other 17 defendants were acquitted of all crimes that they were pronounced due to lack of evidence presented at trial.
Judge Ana Batista recommended to the acquitted defendants to rethink their entire livesremembering that, despite the lack of evidence, there were criminal signs: “I sincerely hope that we do not have to meet again” in this court, he stated.
This is one of the processes resulting from the so-called “Mirror Operation”, by the Judiciary Police (PJ), carried out in November 2023 and related to the alleged exploitation of dozens of immigrant workers on agricultural farms in Alentejo.
Initially, the process involved 35 defendants, of which 22 people (five Portuguese and the rest foreigners) and 13 companies. Meanwhile, two commercial companies were removed from the case, leaving 33 defendants.
Of the five people sentenced this Friday, the heaviest sentence, six and a half years in prison, was applied to the defendant appointed by the president of the collegiate as “the head” of the operation, Ileana Mezo.
The defendant was sentenced to this single penalty, in legal terms, for one crime of aiding illegal immigration, one of human trafficking and another of money laundering.
Two other foreign defendants were sentenced to effective prison sentences of five years, 10 months and six years, respectively, at a legal maximum.
In the case of these two defendants the crime of aiding illegal immigration was proven, one of human trafficking and the other was sentenced to the highest penalty for the crime of money launderingindicated the president of the group of judges.
The sentences suspended during its execution were applied to a defendant of Portuguese nationality, sentenced to five years in prison, for one crime of aiding illegal immigration, one of human trafficking, another of money laundering and one of document forgery, and to a foreigner, sentenced to two years in prison, for a crime of aiding illegal immigration.
When reading the ruling, the presiding judge of the collective also ordered two of the commercial companies accused in the case to pay 850 euros each, while the convicted individual defendants will have to pay compensation of five thousand euros to the victims.
Judge Ana Batista also said that the majority of those accused in this case share family relationships and that, during the trial, the crimes of criminal association that had been pronounced were not proven, which is why they were all cleared of this accusation, with other crimes attributed to some of the accused, such as possession of a prohibited weapon.
Speaking to journalists at the end of the session, Teresinha Ramos, lawyer for the Portuguese woman sentenced to a suspended sentence, said that He did not expect this decision from the court, given the evidence presented at trial, and promised to appeal.
“There is no evidence for the conviction. Obviously we will analyze the ruling, which was read very succinctly, we don’t even understand the final part very well and, after this analysis, the competent appeal will be, naturally”, he said.
Another lawyer, Luís Esteves, representative of two of the acquitted defendants, expressed satisfaction with the Beja Court’s decision, but criticized the Central Criminal Instruction Court (TCIC) for being responsible for his clients, who spent two years and four months in preventive detention overall, having spent “practically another year or so” in this situation.
The TCIC “could have already carried out a more rigorous analysis” in the pre-trial phase, he said, arguing that “it was perfectly unnecessary for them to be subject to preventive detention for another year and ten months and now, in the trial phase, for them to be acquitted”.
Immigrants worked without pay and lived in degrading conditions
The case dates back to 2023. At the time, hundreds of PJ inspectors went to the municipalities of Alentejo to dismantle a network that exploited immigrants.
The suspects allegedly created this network to bring immigrant workers to Portugal, who came mainly from Romania, Ukraine, India, Senegal, Nepal, Timor-Leste and Pakistan.
According to the prosecution’s orders, the workers would be sent to agricultural holdings in Alentejo and construction sites in other regions of the country, where they would perform duties in conditions considered precarious.
Many lived in degrading, overcrowded and unconditional accommodation. They still had to pay for accommodation, food, transport and documentation, but in many cases they did not even receive any remuneration for the work they did.
In January, in another case related to “Operação Espelho”, which was also linked to the exploitation of immigrants, the Beja Court sentenced nine people, seven of them to effective prison, with sentences between three and nine and a half years, and acquitted another three people.
