Case Joana Cipriano - Attacks on Leonor Cipriano

**Pedro Silva** Wed Mar 13, 2013 1:09 pm

My friends, this was taken from Diário de Notícias newspaper:

http://www.dn.pt/especiais/interior.aspx?content_id=1241252&especial=Caso+Joana&seccao=SOCIEDADE&page=-1&success=1

Case Joana Cipriano - Attacks on Leonor Cipriano

Jury acquits Court of inspectors accused of torture

The Court Jury acquitted today of the three inspectors Judicial accused of having tortured Leonor Cipriano during an interrogation, but convicted two accused of other crimes to imprisonment with suspended sentence for the same period.

The reading of the judgment in the case of attacks on Leonor Cipriano lasted about an hour, the Court of Faro, ending a trial that lasted seven months ago and which originated in a complaint of Leonor Cipriano, who claimed to have been assaulted in the Judicial Police (PJ ) Faro in 2004.

Leonel Marques, Paulo Pereira Cristovao and Paulo Marques Bom - accused of the crime of torture - were acquitted because despite having been proved in court that there was aggression, we could not prove who inflicted nor how.

Leonor Cipriano's testimony at trial was descredibilizado by the court due to "serious contradictions" and the fact that, according to the court, the assistant lied about the identity of the attackers, and how long was assaulted.

The former inspector Gonçalo Amaral has been acquitted of the crime of failure to report abuse, but sentenced to one year and six months imprisonment with suspended sentence for the same period for the crime of false testimony.

The charge of false testimony is related to the fact Amaral, five months after the attacks on Leonor Cipriano, having kept under oath, the prosecutors, the initial version of which was unaware of the assault.

António Cardoso, who prepared the report where it was described the attempted suicide of Leonor, was sentenced to two years and three months imprisonment with suspended sentence for the same period for the crime of document forgery.

Despite having been proved that Joana's mother suffered injuries inflicted in the directory Faro PJ, the court failed to prove the specific way in which they were triggered.

According to the tribunal - which rejected the thesis of suicide attempt based on the fall of the stairs - the majority of injuries were caused by direct trauma, not having proved that whoever assaulted did so following instructions.

The court sentenced António Cardoso considering that the inspector lied when filling out the information service in which he described the fall of the stairs Leonor, who attempted suicide, saying he had tried to hang himself.

The attorney for four of the five defendants involved in the process, Pragal Antonio Colaco blamed Teresa Magalhães, a specialist at the National Institute of Legal Medicine (INML), the penalty that Cardoso was sentenced.

According to the lawyer, the fact of giving evidence in court - which denied that Leonor Cipriano fell from stairs - have been deemed "credible" helped to condemnation of Cardoso.

"It is extraordinarily incompetent and maneuvered very well in this process," he said, referring to that expert, adding that will appeal the court's decision.

Already Gonçalo Amaral's lawyer, Antonio Cabrita, told reporters he did not expect the condemnation of his constituent, stressing that ponders appeal the sentence, but only after analyzing the judgment as well.

The case of the alleged assaults on Leonor Cipriano by PJ inspectors is related to the so-called "Joana case" that dates back to September 12, 2004, the day the girl, aged eight, disappeared from the village of Figueira, Portimão, in Algarve.

The charges prosecutors against five inspectors and former inspectors Judicial emerged following the interrogation PJ in Faro in 2004, when Leonor has appeared with injuries on the face and body in Odemira Prison, where she was in jail.