Sintra Court begins to judge PSP agent for the death of Odair Moniz

The trial of the PSP agent accused of the murder of Odair Moniz, 43 years old, who was shot twice in October 2024 in Cova da Moura, in Amadora, begins this Wednesday at the Sintra Court. Initially scheduled for October 15, the trial was postponed until this Wednesday due to health reasons for the defense lawyer.

At the court door, before the session began, the atmosphere was calm, with just a few people near the entrance. Reinforced security was expected for this first day of the trial. Inside the building, next to the area where identity verification is carried out, there were some GNR soldiers.

The trial takes place in one of the smallest rooms in the court, where there are around 30 journalists, with the remaining space reserved for the public and assistance.

The first session was scheduled for 9:15 am, and started at around 9:45 am. Among the names indicated by the court to give statements are Bruno Pinto, the agent accused of murder by the Public Ministry, Rui Machado, who accompanied him the morning of the crime, other members of the PSP already heard by the Public Ministry (MP) as witnesses, and some neighbors who witnessed the police intervention. The group of judges responsible for the trial will be chaired by judge Ana Sequeira.

Odair Moniz, a citizen of Cape Verdean origin, was shot twice in the Cova da Moura neighborhood during a police operation, on October 21st of last year. He died shortly afterwards at the Hospital de São Francisco Xavier, in Lisbon.

According to the MPthe events occurred in the early hours of the morning, when Odair, who worked as a cook, was intercepted by the PSP after making sudden maneuvers behind the wheel. Once in Cova da Moura, he disobeyed the officers’ orders and tried to walk away when they tried to handcuff him. Physical confrontations ensued: beatings, pushing and kicking, until a police officer fired two shots, the first hitting the chest and the second hitting the genital area and the right leg.

For the MP, the agent, who at the time was 28 years old and had worked at the PSP since 2022, “knew that the behavior of shooting twice at close range” at Odair Moniz “was capable of reaching his body” and that “if one of the projectiles reached vital areas, such action was capable of causing his death”. Even so, “with the purpose of keeping Odair away from him and being able to immobilize him”, the defendant “wanted to hit his body in vital areas with two projectiles” and “did not make an effort to reduce the injuries to a minimum” nor “did everything within his power to preserve human life”. The MP concludes that, “admitting the death as possible, the defendant wanted to shoot and fired shots at the victim and accepted the outcome”.

Agent defense

In the first statement after Odair’s death, the PSP referred to an “attempted assault with a bladed weapon”, a hypothesis that was not confirmed by the prosecution. In his statement given to the PJ, Bruno Pinto claimed self-defense, saying that he and his colleague were physically attacked by the cook, who disobeyed an order to stop and ended up straying into the neighborhood.

However, contrary to what was stated in the news report and in the PSP statement, the agent admitted that he was not the target of an attempted attack with a sharp weapon. He only said that he had glimpsed “something similar to a blade” at Odair’s waist, but the victim never wielded the alleged knife during the confrontation. Bruno Pinto is suspended from his duties, as determined by the General Inspectorate of Internal Administration (IGAI).

Bruno Pinto is the only defendant in the case that begins trial this Wednesday, but two other police officers were named defendants in another case related to the case. On October 1, the MP brought charges against Rui Machado and Daniel Nabais, the first was with Bruno Pinto in the early hours of the incident, the second was one of the first agents to arrive at the scene. Both respond for false testimony.

The two police officers, who until recently had the status of witnesses, are now suspected of having presented a false version about the place where the knife was found. They told authorities they had seen a bladed weapon under Odair’s bodybut this version was contradicted by two INEM rescuers and two other PSP agents, who stated that they only saw the knife later and never under the victim’s body. For the MP, the testimonies of Rui Machado and Daniel Nabais do not correspond to the truth: the dagger would not be under Odair Moniz’s body, and it would be hardly credible that, faced with a weapon next to the body, the police “said or did nothing”. The two police officers can still request the opening of an investigation, and the investigating judge will be able to decide whether or not there are enough elements for the case to proceed to trial.

Although they emerged “suspicions” that the weapon was planted or “put in plain sight”the MP was unable to determine by whom; forensics did not detect enough biological traces to obtain a DNA profile. As there was not enough evidence to accuse the agents of personal favoritism, the prosecutor in the case closed this part of the investigation, even though she concluded that she was convinced that Odair Moniz was not holding any weapon at the time he was killed.

The death of Odair Moniz led to protests and disturbances in the neighborhoods of Cova da Moura and Zambujal, which included acts of vandalism and the hijacking of two buses, both of which were set on fire on public roadsone of them with the driver still inside. The wave of revolt led to several arrests and reignited criticism of the PSP’s actions, both from residents and political leaders and representatives of civil society.