I never ordered anyone to kill my ex-girlfriend,” claimed the former boyfriend of the Alvor acid attack victim, Ellie Chessell.Claudio Gouveia categorically has denied any involvement in the cruel attack that left Chessell, a TUI travel rep, scarred for life.
The Madeira resident did admit that he failed to inform the police after Edmundo Helder Fonseca, his alleged accomplice, admitted he had carried out the attack last May.
Gouveia, 35, is being tried separately from Fonseca and both are being held in Silves prison.
Earlier in his trial, Gouveia denied Ellie's claims in her police statement that he was obsessed with 'threesomes’ and claimed she had instigated several threesomes involving friends and strangers. Gouveia also depicted Chessell as having alcohol problems.
Gouveia said in Portimão court, "I am appalled. I have been put in jail for something I haven't done with consequences to my family, my six-year-old nephew who asks about me every single day. The man responsible for this is in prison in Silves, right next to me. Ask him. Why am I being tried?”
The three judges received an explanation as to why Gouvia refused to speak on day one of his trial, “I was too nervous in the first session but I want to give evidence to clear all doubt. I have been waiting to talk for 11 months. Most of the accusations against me are false. I never ordered anyone to kill my ex-girlfriend.”
Ellie Chessell, from Newport on the Isle of Wight, suffered second-degree and third-degree burns to more than 50% of her body after she was tricked on Tinder into going on a dinner date with a sopposed 'wealthy businessman' called Diogo. This was a ruse and she had an estimated one litre of acid thrown over her as she made her way to the assignment.
Gouveia did admit to travelling twice to the Algarve with Fonseca, once before the attack and on the day she was targeted - but insisted he was just 'helping his friend with a drugs deal' and claimed to have had no idea that Ellie Chessell had relocated to Alvor.
Gouveia said that he had left Fonseca to do his 'drugs business' and that he went to watch a football game in a cafe.
Gouveia alleges that, back in Madeira, Fonseca’s girlfriend, Raquel, “came to my house and told me over a coffee, that Edmundo had confided he had done a bad thing to my ex-girlfriend with acid the last day we were in the Algarve.”
“I knew nothing about the acid attack at the time. Raquel showed me the newspaper articles about it on her phone which said an ex-boyfriend was a suspect. I got concerned and I called Edmundo and told him to come to my house. He confessed what he had done. He told me he threw acid over her.
“Edmundo had drug problems and was an unstable person. But he was also angry with Ellie and thought she had betrayed me. He seemed more hurt with her than I was.”
Admitting he failed to inform local police, Gouveia added, “I tried to convince him to go to the police. A few days later I ended up going to the police to ask if they had anything against me but I didn't talk about Edmundo. I thought he should be the one to tell them.”
The case continues.
