Almost two years after the crime, the court in Faro have sentenced the young man accused of shooting Lucas Leote, outside a nightclub in the Algarve, to 16 years in prison, for two crimes of simple homicide, one consummated and the other in the attempted form.
The crime dates back to the early hours of August 23, 2019, when Lucas Leote, 19, who belonged to the staff of the Lick nightclub in Boliqueime, Loulé, was fatally shot in the head by António Tavares, who fled the scene.
According to the presiding judge of the collective that judged the case, despite the fact that it was proved that António Tavares "did not want to kill" Lucas Leote, "a person he did not even know", he "knew that when shooting" at four people this could result in hitting or killng one of them, but he still “conformed” to it.
“When he sees that Paulo Silva, after the first shot, flees into the disco, he [the defendant] risks shooting to the same place where those four people are, knowing that the bullet can hit any one of them”, said Joaquim Jorge da Cross.
In reading the judgment, the judge said that it was proved that António Tavares intended to hit Paulo Silva, one of the nightclub security guards, who had refused him entry into the club moments before, but ended up hitting Lucas Leote with his second shot.
“When they heard the first shot [the people standing by the door], they instinctively ducked and started running inside. When they funneled to enter that door, the defendant fired exactly at that area. It is evident that he wanted to shoot for that zone”, he underlined.
The defendant claimed in the first session of the trial that he had fired the shots "to scare", but the court found that if that were the objective, he would have "fired into the air" and not in the direction of several people.
"As you can see in the images, [the defendant] wields a weapon with both hands, at the height of the head, bends his legs and fires. Obviously he is looking for a balanced position", emphasised the judge.
António Tavares was accused of one account of qualified homicide and two crimes of homicide qualified in the attempted form, but the court decided to lower the qualification of the crimes to simple homicide, due to omissions in the accusation that did not support the existence of qualified homicide.
However, as only two bullets were fired, the court decided to acquit António Tavares from one of the crimes of murder in the attempted form he was accused of, having imposed a sentence of 14 years for the murder of Lucas Leote and another sentence of five and a half years for the attempted murder of Paulo Silva.
To these are added other minor crimesfor holding a prohibited weapon and driving a motor vehicle without legal authorisation, resulting in a single sentence of 16 years in prison.
António Tavares was also ordered to pay Lucas Leote's parents an indemnity of 70,000 euros.
The court considered that there was a “conduct of high illegality”, stressing that the defendant's attitude towards the security guards' refusal to allow him access to the nightclub was “completely disproportionate”.
See previous coverage here:
https://algarvedailynews.com/news/16904-19-year-old-boy-shot-in-vilamoura-nightclub
Original article available in Portuguese at http://postal.pt/
