‘Homeland’ case - Duarte Lima sentenced to 10 years in prison

Former politician turned criminal, Duarte Lima has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for aggravated fraud and money laundering.
 
The summary from the group of judges, led by Filipa Valentim, took four hours and ends the long-running and intricate ‘Operation Homeland’ fraud case.

Duarte Lima is well known and was well connected in Portugal as he is a former MP, a lawyer and was vice president of the National Policy Committee of the Social Democratic Party between 1989 and 1991, chairing its parliamentary group between 1991 and 1994.

Since 2011, the PSD has been headed by Pedro Passos Coelho, the current Prime Minister who has yet to make a comment on today's sentencing and possibly will decline to do so in the future.

Lima finally has been told by a judge that he had displayed "cunning conduct which misled those in charge and caused damage to Banco Português de Negócios and in this manner made gains to which he was not entitled."

Duarte Lima said before today's sentencing that he expects to be acquitted "if the decision reflects what happened and the evidence produced at the trial," adding that if the decision takes into account the speculation played out in the media, then the conclusion will be 'unfavourable.'

Duarte Lima got six years in jail for fraud and seven for money laundering but under current legislation can only receive a total of ten.

A former Social Democratic MP, Vítor Raposo was sentenced to six years of imprisonment for serious fraud.

João Almeida e Paiva was sentenced to four years of imprisonment for serious fraud offences and forgery of documents.

Pedro Almeida Paiva and was sentenced to two years and six months in prison for aggravated fraud and falsification of documents, although the sentence may be suspended if he stumps up €50,000 to the Portuguese Institute of Oncology.

Francisco Canas, the entrepreneur known as Zé das Medalhas (Zé the Medals) was sentenced to four years for money laundering.

The court found that it was Canas who, at the request of Duarte Lima, illegally transferred huge sums of money to offshore accounts in Switzerland.

Duarte Lima, Pedro Lima and Vítor Raposo started the Homeland fund with an inflated loan of €43 million from the former Banco Português de Negócios based on the acquisition of land in Oeiras in 2007, close to the spot where they expected the headquarters of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology to be built, a project later abandoned by the Institute.

All but one of those accused were sentenced to jail, with no suspension of sentence, with the exception of Duarte Lima’s son Pedro, who was acquitted. Pedro Lima was 20 at the time of the offences.

Lima’s lawyer, Soares da Veiga, announced that there will be an appeal to the Lisbon court against Lima's sentence. The lawyers for the others convicted also will work with their clients on their appeals.

This appeals process has meant that all those sentenced and appealing will be at liberty and the €18 million that Lima and two co-accused must pay back is suspended until the appeal process is over.

Banco Português de Negócios from which Lima and his associates managed to borrow €43 million, had to be nationalised by the Portuguese Government in 2008 after a bad management and malpractice-related debt of €1.8 billion and several ‘irregularities’ finally were uncovered.

By 2011, BPN had been stripped of many of its debts and bad loans and was sold to Angola’s Banco BIC for €40 million.

Lima also is wanted in Brazil on suspicion of the murder of Rosalina Ribeiro

Rosalina Ribeiro was the secretary and lover of Portuguese industrialist Tomás Feteira for about 30 years. Tomás Feteira died in 2000 and in December 2009 Rosalina was murdered in Brazil, near Saquarema, Rio de Janeiro.

According to the Portuguese newspaper i, a complaint against Duarte Lima was filed by Feteira's heirs, related to missing money from the legacy of the Portuguese millionaire.

The money had been transferred to Duarte Lima's Swiss account by Rosalina Ribeiro.

The daughter of Tomás Feteira, Olímpia Feteira said that in 2001 Duarte Lima had received five transfers totalling more than €5.2 million.

Rosalina Ribeiro lost an action in a Brazilian court, where she had claimed part of the fortune on the grounds that she and the businessman lived as man and wife. However, the court dismissed her claims.

The daughter of the businessman wanted then to know why the father's accounts were being handled by his former secretary and questioned the whereabouts of the money that should have exceeded €30 million.

In December 7, 2009, Duarte Lima, who was Rosalina Ribeiro's lawyer, flew to Rio de Janeiro to have a business meeting with her.

In principle they were to handle issues related to Rosalina Ribeiro's assets.

Rosalinda later was found shot dead with two bullets in the chest and one in the head. Duarte Lima stated that only heard of her death on December 21, 2009, when he was in London preparing to travel to Hong Kong.

On Thursday, 27 October 2011, Duarte Lima formally was accused of the murder of Rosalina Ribeiro by the Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

The Brazilian authorities claim that Ribeiro was murdered after refusing to sign a document diverting millions to Lima from millionaire Feteira.

During the first interrogation on May 16th via questions put in writing to Duarte by the Brazilian authorities, he failed to clarify whether he had declared the money to Portuguese tax authorities.

The prosecution claims that this money was the reason for Ribeiro’s murder.

It is not yet known how and when Lima will stand trial in Brazil for the murder of Ribeiro.

Tax evasion

In 1997, Duarte Lima told the tax authorities that between 1986 and 1994 he had earned €900,000 but a full investigation in 1994 showed that he had made deposits of around €5million over this period.

After an inquiry by the Judicial Police into movements in and out of Lima’s 35 bank accounts he was charged with several financial crimes. However, all charges against Lima mysteriously were archived.

At the time, trafficking in influence and money laundering did not exist as crimes in Portugal but how he was not done for tax evasion remains unexplained.

The facts were that over a period of nine years, Lima made bank deposits in excess of €5 million and declared just over €900,000 to Finanças.

Normal mortals would be taken to the cleaners by Finanças for such blatant lying and would be fined as well as receiving an income tax demand based on the €5 million.

The National Association of Pharmacies and Mota e Companhia, the current Mota-Engil, were identified as the main sources of Lima’s income.

The Swiss authorities refused to divulge the amounts Lima held in Swiss bank accounts despite receiving rogatory letters.

Despite this background, in 1997 Duarte Lima went on to win the election for the presidency of the District Federation of the PSD/Lisbon.

Interpol

Lima is on Interopol's Wanted list; is is obvious where Lima is, yet he remains at liberty.

Why the Brazilian authorities have not insisted on Lima's deportation remains a mystery and the fact that there is no extradition treaty between Brazil and Portugal itself if of enduring suspicon.

'Wanted by the judicial authorities of Brazil for prosecution / to serve a sentence'

 http://www.interpol.int/notice/search/wanted/2012-13800

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