Giving hope to the father and friends of murdered Portimão teen Rodrigo Lapa, a Brazilian wanted for murder has finally been extradited back home to face his country’s justice system.
Ricardo Leonel Lima, 36, was detected in Portugal only a few months ago (September 2016) thanks to an Interpol alert posted after he fled the country while awaiting trial for the murder in 2003 of his former girlfriend, Kareol Kris da Silva, 21.
In his absence in 2009, Lima was condemned to 20 years behind bars, but it took a further six years for his name to sound alarm bells that echoed back in his hometown of Minas Gerais.
Lima was ‘discovered’ living in Queluz (near Lisbon), with a Brazilian wife and daughter. He was using a false identity and working as an operative in an “industry related to sugar”, reports Correio da Manhã.
But what the paper does not stress in its story is that ‘extradition agreements’ between Brazil and Portugal do not exist. This is always the reason given as to why it is taking so long to ‘interrogate’ the principal suspect in the brutal murder last year of 15-year-old Rodrigo Lapa (click here).
CM’s story shows that, occasionally, the lack of an extradition agreement does not stand in the way of justice.
Those fighting for Brazilian police to work with Portimão’s PJ and allow the questioning of Joaquim Lara Pinto in Cuiabá will be hoping Rodrigo’s story may also see the kind of closure extended to former university student Kareol Kris da Silva.