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Pedrógão Grande - stolen donations case dropped

FirePedGrandeCarThe Public Prosecutor's Office has closed down the judicial process that investigated the alleged diversion of donations that were meant to go to the victims of the fatal Pedrógão Grande fires.

The prosecutor filed the case, concluding that there had been no misappropriation of cash or materials.

The court concluded that, "no diversion of any donated money has been demonstrated, whether by the Council or by others" and that, "the suspicions over diversions of material goods have not been confirmed."

The open inquiry was opened "following news published in July, 2018 in Expresso, which raised the suspicion that money had been diverted in the aftermath of the June 17th fire in Pedrógão Grande."

Pedrógão Grande Council said in a statement that both the local authority and "its president, Valdemar Alves, were not expecting another result" from this inquiry.

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Comments  

+3 #4 John Stoddart 2019-03-08 09:05
Surely this is not rocket science. If a house was both habitable and being occupied before the fire it should have got help. The doubts arose from the many rebuilt ruins, with substantial assistance from the help fund and PG Municipal licensing, that were neither habitable or being occupied before the fire - yet were owned (some apparently even bought after the fire!) by well connected individuals. As was warned at the time - too well connected locally to be prosecuted for theft.
+7 #3 Darcy 2019-03-07 09:01
The Government wil need to clarify how much money came into the special account that was set up at the time of this terrible disaster, and then give a itemised description of every purchase made and cash given to residents of this area to help them in the short term.
Taking into account that cash given should have a signature of the recipient for verification.
If the Government is to present itself as trustworthy then there needs to have complete transparency, particularly with money coming into the country from foreign sources in the form of charity donations.
TheGovernment can override the public prosecutions office if they think that the PPO does not have the full facts to make a full and final decision on this matter.
The Buck stops with this Government.
+3 #2 charly 2019-03-07 08:19
Why not designate a more scrupulous and perhaps more professional Judge ?
This is a shame for the country... but oh so recognizable. Poor Portugal!
+4 #1 John Stoddart 2019-03-07 07:46
If the prosecutors are intentionally looking in the wrong direction, as so often in Portugal, not finding proof is the certain conclusion! This is exactly the reason that the Coimbra University researcher did not go public on being mysteriously blocked from researching the rebuilding in the Pedrógão Grande Council area whilst having no problems elsewhere.
If the prosecutors want another suspicious issue to investigate in the Pedrógão Grande Council area they should correlate which well connected 'families' got multiple structural grants to build tourism projects back around 2010. Allegedly one well connected PG Municipal employee had 3 of 'his' projects funded! Other applicants were de-listed secretly from having their applications progressed. Yet their projects innovations then being seen to be bolted into the more successful local applicants ones.

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