Amnesty International, Amnesty International Report 1994 - Portugal, 1 January 1994, available at: https://www.refworld.org/docid/3ae6a9f532.html [accessed 17 September 2023]
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There were reports of torture and ill-treatment by police and prison officers. Judicial and administrative inquiries were very slow but a few cases of alleged ill-treatment came to trial during the year. All the reports of torture and ill-treatment concerned people who had been detained on suspicion of having committed criminal offences. Officers from all law enforcement agencies were accused of ill-treating detainees: Polícia Judiciária (PJ), Judiciary Police; Polícia de Segurança Pública (PSP), Public Security Police; and the Guarda Nacional Republicana (GNR), Republican National Guard. Prison officers were also alleged to have ill-treated criminal suspects. Some of the allegations referred to incidents in previous years. In many cases the complainants were released without charge. The most common forms of ill-treatment alleged were repeated kicks, punches and beatings with truncheons. Detainees also reported threats of assault, including sexual assault. In March Pedro Leit o Pereira, a student from Oporto, was stopped in the street by two PSP officers. They accused him of being a fugitive whom they had pursued earlier. According to his statement, he gave them his identity papers and an account of his movements and offered to go to the police station. The police, however, took him down an alley-way and assaulted him with truncheons, injuring his legs and head, before allowing him to go. He required hospital treatment for injuries consistent with his allegations. He presented a formal complaint to the 12th Squadron of the PSP. An investigation was opened but had not concluded by the end of the year. In February 1992 Francisco Carretas and a friend alleged that they were assaulted by GNR officers in Charneca da Caparica, near Almada. In a complaint to the authorities, Francisco Carretas stated that the officers took them to the GNR post in Almada where they were beaten with truncheons, kicked, punched and threatened, and then took them to a nearby wood where they were again kicked and punched. One officer threatened to assault Francisco Carretas sexually. He was then released. Photographs showed extensive bruising and other injuries to his back, buttocks and legs. A military judicial investigation was opened but no progress was reported by the end of 1993. Numerous inquiries into allegations of torture and ill-treatment remained unresolved. Some had been open for many years. However, judicial decisions were reached in some cases. Both civil and military prosecuting officers stated during the year that inquiries into the injuries and subsequent death of Domingos do Couto had been closed at the request of the commanding officer of the northern military region. Domingos do Couto had died in hospital in 1984 having alleged that four days earlier GNR officers had severely beaten him with truncheons, causing injuries to his chest and heart (see Amnesty International Report 1993). The prosecuting officers did not explain how or by whom his injuries had been inflicted in custody, nor the circumstances of his subsequent death. In March a court in Setúbal found one PSP officer guilty of abusing his authority and causing serious injury to Alexandre Gravanita. Alexandre Gravanita, a Portuguese citizen born in Angola, had been kicked, punched and racially abused in a PSP station in Setúbal in 1991 (see Amnesty International Report 1993). The PSP officer was sentenced to one year's imprisonment and fined. A second officer was convicted of giving false testimony and sentenced to eight months' imprisonment. Both sentences were suspended for three years. The officers appealed against their sentences. In May six GNR officers were charged in Almada with causing physical harm to Paulo Manuel Ferreira Portugal. He alleged that GNR officers had assaulted him in August 1991 causing injuries to his head, jaw, eyes and back (see Amnesty International Report 1993). In June a court in Caxias acquitted the former governor of Linhó Prison and seven guards on charges of causing serious bodily injuries to prisoners. The charges were based on allegations of systematic beatings of prisoners following the death of M rio Manuel da Luz in a punishment cell in June 1989. The prison governor had earlier been forcibly retired following a disciplinary inquiry into allegations of ill-treatment. The Public Prosecutor appealed against the verdict of the Caxias court (see Amnesty International Reports1990 to 1993). Amnesty International urged the authorities to ensure that detainees were not tortured or ill-treated. The organization asked for information about inquiries into allegations of ill-treatment and the progress of any judicial or administrative proceedings. In December 1992 the Ombudsman announced an inquiry into the PJ. In February Amnesty International asked him to include in his inquiry two cases of alleged torture and ill-treatment by the PJ which were unresolved from previous years: those of Isidro Albuquerque Rodrigues, who was arrested in June 1990 (see Amnesty International Reports1992 and 1993), and Orlando Correia, who was arrested in September 1992 (see Amnesty International Report 1993). The result of the Ombudsman's inquiry was not known at the end of the year. In November the UN Committee against Torture considered the Portuguese Government's Initial Report on its compliance with the UN Convention against Torture. The government replied to the Committee's questions on its report and supplied information on some specific cases of alleged torture and ill-treatment. In its conclusions the Committee welcomed government efforts to implement the Convention but regretted that, despite these efforts, ill-treatment and sometimes torture in police stations continued. It also criticized the frequent delays and length of inquiries into such allegations and considered that those responsible were not always brought to justice. It believed that this situation, as well as the lightness of sentences for people convicted of torture and ill-treatment, created "an impression of relative impunity for the authors of these crimes which is highly prejudicial to the application of the provisions of the Convention".
