Former Vila Real de Santo António mayor Conceição Cabrita and former MP António Gameiro went on trial at Faro Court on Monday, 26 October, accused of passive corruption, the legal term for accepting a bribe. Cabrita admitted receiving money from a local businessman, but described it as a “loan” which she hoped to use in order to support the municipality’s more financially vulnerable families.
Former mayor Conceição Cabrita quit office after a set of Judicial Police (PJ) raids in 2021. Now, she has revealed in court that a businessman handed her €10,000 per month in cash, not as a bribe, but as a loan. Prosecutors disagree, claiming that in return for the money the businessman was offered unfair preference in the allocation of council contracts.
Cabrita claims that the monthly injection of cash began once the council could no longer support families in need, due to the terms of a financial bailout it had been under since 2016. She is also charged with forgery of documents, prevarication, and abuse of power. At this week’s proceedings she went on to explain that she turned to businessman Paulo Calvinho for a loan when her salary no longer stretched far enough to help those who she deemed to be in need of financial aid. Over a year and a half she ran up a debt of around €200,000 to the businessman, and she ended up naming about ten families to whom she allegedly paid €600 per month.
Asked what had driven her, she replied: “Well, because I’m daft. I have this urge to help people in difficulty. I know it’s hard to believe, but the truth is I’ve always been that way.”
Appearing somewhat unclear about the total debt she had amassed, she insisted she never favoured the businessman with council contracts, as prosecutors allege.
As for the alleged kickbacks over the sale of a plot, located in a prime position opposite the Hotel Vasco da Gama in Monte Gordo, in the municipality of Vila Real de Santo António, prosecutors say that former MP António Gameiro was the conduit for a €300,000 payment to smooth the purchase and the project.
Gameiro is alleged to have worked as a consultant to the buying company and the council’s legal adviser on the deal, occurring under Cabrita’s tenure as mayor. The purchase has since been reversed.
The mayor, prosecutors claim, instructed her friend and alleged accomplice, the MP, to have a third of the €300,000 sum paid for the plot sent straight into the businessman’s account, as repayment of the debt she had been running up to cover so-called “social emergencies”.
Source: Observador
Photo credit: Sabado
