A businessman from Porto de Mós, Leiria, convicted in 2010 of shooting a man dead who had been caught robbing his Madiver company premises, received a 13-year sentence but later fled the country.
António Bastos, also a director of the União de Leiria football club, was sentenced to 12 years and six months in prison for murder, plus one year and two months for the use of a prohibited weapon in the 2009 incident.
The court also sentenced Bastos to pay the victim's family compensation of €111,000.
According to the judgment, the court found that the entrepreneur had intended to kill, as the shot was fired at close range and that the weapon was "in good condition."
According to the prosecutor, José da Silva, the victim worked for the company and was arrested for theft by the GNR. He offered no resistance but Bastos approached the arresting officer and the employee, firing the gun he was carrying, fatally wounding his employee who already had been handcuffed.
This was all five years ago, since which Bastos has not been seen or heard of until today’s news that he has been tracked down to Guinea-Bissau and arrested.
The Judicial Police with international cooperation, identified and located Bastos, now aged 62, and were granted an arrest warrant.
Bastos was picked up in Guinea-Bissau, "during a joint operation between the Portuguese Judicial Police and the Judicial Police of Guinea-Bissau, with the previous collaboration of the Federal Police of Brazil."
Bastos was living under a false name and was using with fake ID documents. The process now will follow legal procedures "in order to extradition him to Portugal."
In December 2011, the Porto de Mós Court officially was notified of the entrepreneur's disappearance. Bastos had been under house arrest with an electronic bracelet in Figueira da Foz while waiting for his appeal to be heard.
Bastos is expected to finish his sentence in a Portuguese jail and faces additional charges of leaving the country while under house arrest.
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