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Duarte Lima to be jailed

duarte limaA Lisbon Court had ordered the closure of the "Homeland - BPN" case and that Duarte Lima must be jailed.

There is no further possibility of appeal in the case and Duarte Lima, the former MP, must serve his reduced sentence of six years.

The Lisbon Court of Appeal ruled that the judgment must be executed by referral to the Court that, in 2014, found Lima guilty of fraud and money laundering.

Duarte Lima must surrender himself and be jailed.

The final order of the Lisbon Court states that the judges decided, "not to allow an appeal to the Constitutional Court brought by a co-defendant (Vítor Raposo) because it is out of time."

Vítor Raposo is a former business partner of Duarte Lima. The court thus has prevented Duarte Lima from benefiting from Raposo’s appeal.

The BPN - Homeland case is related to the acquisition of land in Oeiras for the construction of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology with a loan from BPN that was not repaid.

Since 2016, Duarte Lima has filed several appeals and complaints to the Supreme Court of Justice and to the Constitutional Court, which impeded this final and unappealable judgment.

Four defendants were convicted, among them Duarte Lima, and were ordered to pay about €18 million to Parvalorem which took over the management of Banco Português de Negócios.

BPN was nationalised by the Portuguese Government in 2008 after a bad management and malpractice-related debt of €1.8 billion and several irregularities were uncovered in the institution. In 2012, BPN, stripped of many of its debts and bad loans, was sold to Angola’s Banco BIC for just €40 million.