Faro’s Public Prosecutor's Office has filed murder charges against the three men who kicked a young father to death in Albufeira last September.Paulo Santos, the father of a four-year-old son, was set upon in Rua Infante Dom Henrique at around 6pm on September 3rd last year, after he had stopped for a snack at a fast-food stand.
"The three defendants punched and kicked the victim, even when he was unconscious, which caused his death."
Two of the accused have been in custody awaiting trial.
Doctors later declared Paulo Santos (aka Paulo di Santo) ‘brain dead’ and gave him less than a 1% change of recovery. Life support systems were switched off on September 8th and a murder hunt began.
The Judicial Police, who interviewed witnesses to the brutal attack, later arrested three men aged between 22 and 24-years-old, for "the presumed practice of crimes of qualified homicide and of offense to physical integrity."
According to the police, "the detainees threw punches and kicks, and with the victim lying prone on the floor, one of the defendants kicked him in the head, while another jumped on his body.”
Paulo Santos, originally from Lisbon, was left lying unconscious in the street with serious head injuries and, as doctors later found, two broken vertebrae. Another youth also was injured.
The Public Prosecutor's Office says that what took place was "a settling of accounts that involved aggression between several individuals."
The family deny there was any grudge that would involve an explosion of violence and said that Paulo Santos was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
