Yesterday, the Public Prosecutor's Office asked the court to apply a five year prison sentence to the young man, accused of stabbing his father to death in a village in Tavira, in an alleged context of domestic violence.
See previous article here: https://algarvedailynews.com/news/24925-man-accused-of-killing-his-father-can-leave-his-house-to-work-and-see-the-doctor
During the closing arguments, the MP prosecutor said he considered that Maurício Cavaco should be convicted of simple homicide with special mitigation, taking into account the special regime for young people, the absence of a criminal record, the fact that he confessed to the crime and that he sought psychological treatment.
The judge said he understood that it was not proven at trial that the crime was committed in self-defense, also ruling out the possibility that the defendant was not responsible, as suggested by the first psychiatric assessment, carried out one month after the crime, having stated that he considered the second assessment to be more valid.
After this examination, the specialist at Faro Hospital diagnosed the accused with “post-traumatic stress, depressive disorder and anxiety disorder”, based on “a series” of emotional and affective instabilities.
According to the expert, at the time of the crime, the “self-defense situation” implied “the reduction in the assessment of the consequences of an aggression of such caliber” and “the complete nullification of the assessment of the unlawfulness” of the act.
However, the MP prosecutor stated that he understood that the young man was capable of distinguishing what was right from what was wrong, having acted of “free will” and consciously, and argued that there were “contradictions” in the conclusions of that expert report, whose scientific validity he questioned.
The judge also ruled out the possibility of this being a privileged homicide, supported by the Defense and which, according to the Penal Code, occurs when someone kills “dominated by an understandable violent emotion, compassion, despair or a reason of relevant social or moral value, which significantly diminishes their guilt”.
Stating that it was proven that the young man acted in an “unequivocal context” of violence, the prosecutor considered, however, that “there are no signs to consider that at the time of the crime Maurício acted to defend his mother from an imminent and violent attack that could cause her death”.
Defense attorney Elisabete Romão had a different opinion, as she harshly criticized the way the Judiciary Police conducted the investigation and, in an emotional speech, questioned the jurors and the audience about what they would do in a similar situation, after years of "humiliating daily behaviour" and a lack of affection.
“It is such a desperate act that we would all commit that crime in those circumstances,” she argued, adding that she believes the victim managed to convict his own son twice, doing everything to “turn a good child into a murderer.” The lawyer recalled that the young man still speaks of his father in the present tense and feels persecuted by him, “such is the disturbance” to which he was subjected.
According to Elisabete Romão, Maurício's father “managed to manipulate a family”, to the point that, in court, the young man's mother practically “excused” her husband, even after having been subjected to humiliating and violent behaviour for several years and frequently receiving death threats.
“In order to know if there was violent emotion, we would have to hear every day ‘he’s going to kill me’, ‘I’m going to kill myself’, ‘he’s going to kill us’. Until we are able to feel these words every day, only then will we be able to know what Maurício would have felt that day”, she claimed.
The crime took place in December 2023 at the family home, in the village of Várzea do Vinagre, in Santa Catarina da Fonte do Bispo, when the young man, then 19 years old, allegedly intervened in defense of his mother, killing his father, aged 63.
The reading of the ruling to the young man, who is under house arrest at his aunt's house, was scheduled for May 14th at 4:00 pm, at the Faro Court.
