Former MP and vice president of the National Policy Committee of the Social Democratic Party between 1989 and 1991, the lawyer Duarte Lima is to face trial in Portugal for the 2009 murder of Rosalina Ribeiro in Brazil.
The Lisbon judiciary has said that unless the case was transferred to Portugal from Brazil, there was risk of the former MP escaping unpunished.
Rosalina Ribeiro was shot dead on December 7, 2009, in Maricá, 80 kilometres from Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. Local police have no doubt that it was Duarte Lima that murdered or arranged the murder of the 74-year-old.
Seven years later, the Brazilian justice system has decided that Duarte Lima should be tried in Portugal.
The decision was made known yesterday, after a request from the prosecutor's office has been granted by the Brazilian judiciary.
"It was decided unanimously to uphold the appeal to transfer the present criminal case to Portugal," said the Brazilian judge who signs the transfer order, Suimei Cavalieri.
"The defendant travelled from Portugal to Brazil and here he murdered Rosalina Ribeiro, luring her to an ambush in a wilderness at the side of a highway and shooting her in the head and chest," the judge said in the summary.
"All the legal conditions for the transfer of the case are verified: the accused is a Portuguese citizen, which makes it impossible to grant extradition requests by Brazil, and is in Portugal, where he is domiciled. If he is condemned in Brazil it will be impossible to secure his return Brazil with which he has no ties."
Regarding the evidence already gathered in Brazil, the judge ordered that all records be sent to the Secretariat of International Cooperation at the Attorney General's Office for the process to be fully transferred to Portugal so that Lima can be prosecuted with all the evidence to hand.
In Portugal, Lima has been found guilty of involvement in the Homeland fraud case and continues to use the complex Portugal appeals system to stay out of prison.
For details of this banking fraud, click on : 'Duarte Lima's sentence reduced to six years in prison'
