The first judicial interrogation of the three defendants detained as part of the alleged corruption case in Madeira was postponed for the third consecutive time.
Pedro Calado, Avelino Farinha and Custódio Correia were present this Monday, January 29th, at the Central Criminal Investigation Court, in Lisbon, to be heard by the criminal investigation judge, but ended up spending the afternoon meeting with the defense lawyers to handle requests.
The interview was rescheduled again, this time for 10:30 am tomorrow, Tuesday.
The defendants will spend another night, in the Judicial Police dungeons.
Criminal investigation judge Jorge Bernardes de Melo, who is leading the process assigned by lottery, will assign coercive measures after the conclusion of the first judicial interrogation. The lawyer for the resigning mayor of Funchal predicted today that this could happen at the end of this week, an estimate that could be changed taking into account the successive delays in starting the investigation phase.
Given the complexity of the case, this investigation phase is expected to take several hours per defendant. According to a judicial source, the inquiry should begin with Custódio Correia, followed by Avelino Farinha and, finally, Pedro Calado.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office investigations involved home and non-home searches in around 60 locations, 45 of which were in Madeira. At issue are facts that occurred from 2015 onwards, likely to constitute crimes of attack against the rule of law, malfeasance, undue receipt of an advantage, passive corruption, active corruption, economic participation in business, abuse of powers and influence peddling.