The prosecutor in the case against the former mayor of Tavira be convicted of five crimes allegedly committed when he was in office. The judges will pronounce their verdict on June 29th.
In the second session at Faro court of trial involving the former mayor, lawyer Eduardo Cunha considered that it had been proved that Correia had acted illegally by granting licenses in areas of the National Ecological Reserve (REN).
Cunha did not request any specific penalty for the former mayor.
Correia was mayor of Tavira between 1998 and 2009 and went on to be elected mayor of Faro where he was found guilty of planning infractions and was suspended in 2013.
Macário Correia’s defence team, led by Artur Cansado, requested his client’s acquittal and refuted the idea that the mayor has taken licensing decisions 'to someone’s benefit' relating to two swimming pools at private homes on countryside land in the Tavira district.
Cansado asked the judges to treat the five crimes of malfeasance as one continuous crime - this would attract a lower penalty.
Eduardo Cunha said that "there was an intention by the decision maker to benefit someone," although no trade-off had been proven. The objective seems to have been to halt the desertification of mountain areas.
The prosecutor also criticised the lack of mitigating factors to justify the approval of the projects in an REN area, such as the existence of ancient ruins on the property or that the applicant did not have his own home and lived with their parents, or had land where he wanted to build a house and settle down with a partner.
"The intention to have people settle in the mountains underlies these approvals," said the prosecutor in his closing arguments.
The defence lawyer said that "there was not any kind of favouritism on the part of the accused" and that the five planning approvals in question, which came from hundreds of cases examined during the investigation, did have overriding factors that justified them.
Two more prominent Algarve names are in trouble over missing funds at the trade association ACRAL.
Former president of ACRAL João Rosado (pictured below) and the former treasurer Feliciano Rito have been accused of embezzlement.
In a statement, ACRAL claimed that the two former leaders who held office between February 2009 and March 2013 had been accused of the crime by Évora’s Central Department of Investigation and Penal Action, after three years of detailed research.
"ACRAL will wait serenely for the trial and expects that if the charge is proved, whoever committed this crime will receive a fitting punishment" said Álvaro Viegas, the current association president.
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You had one comment published on the 7th of this month. No other comments have been received, apart from this follow up one of course.
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Ed
ANYTHING TO DO WITH -
"The continuing vilification of Correia is in itself a scandal, seeing as he was one of the more energetic and less corrupt of the Algarve Mayors. What about Manuel da Luz and the missing millions? What about Desidério da Silva and the unplanned floods? And the former mayor of Silves? All of these deserve to be in court, but instead we have Macário Correia charged with peccadilloes"
1. the apartment buildings he constructed on the 125 without permission - that stand empty as a testament to the illegality of them
2 What about his legal defence conducted whilst still PRESIDENTE of FARO and either paid by the CMF or utilised CMF resources.
Macario was a populist slimebucket
But hey - that's polishits in Portugal.
He even reduced the height of the speed bumps outside the Escola Secundaria & kindergarten becasue drivers were complaining they couldn't drive over them at their elected speed.
to find a couple of planning application for pools in a firezone as evidence of corruption , well he should be given a bloody medal! Just ask the Bomberos , they want to see rural pools as the NORM as well as garages to house flammables and vehicles.
He had a little forethought about the campo and serra , regions dying with lack of investments and succesive generations not so keen to eke an existence from the land having left it.
REN should be praising him from ahigh , more pools , more council water , more roads , would have helped the destruction of the reserve in 14 by prevention.... compared to errant land owners near it doing nothing about fire prevention whatsoever.
I hope he is cleared , and with it will come his style of managment back to the political fold.
The current mayor is decent enough , but is scared to enact similar regen thought and fire prevention to the North of Tavira , other than giving the locals free carob to reforest , horse and bolt , thinking that they will lose and income and would make a difference which it has not.
To date many areas of the North still do not have running water , only boreholes and septics , without increasing housing there will be no need to improve... despite being given money from the EU for it.
And Desidério ignored his planners to get that pathetic storm drain built in Albufeira. The outcome was that the town was flooded, directly as a cause of his overriding of professional advice, at a cost of millions for the people of the town, and for the insurance industry. Added to which, the rates in Albufeira are amongst the highest in the country. And what has happened to this idiot? Yes, he has just been promoted. But, unlike Correia, he is a lickspittle for the "élite" in Lisbon.
This is why I say that Correia has been unfairly singled out among Algarve mayors who are, by comparison, giants in corruption.
Portugal was only ever certain to shooting itself in the foot joining the European Union and then the euro. The bar, low as it is to some other EU countries, is still far too high for Portugal.
In this discussion and the following comments we yet again see the immaturity of the checks and balances in Portuguese Planning Administration. And likewise the policing and investigations and in particular the state of development of Portuguese society. Quite obviously dozens will have known about any building in the RAN and REN. From the builders merchants supplying the materials. Neighbouring farmers and landowners. Municipal planning officers and any 'straight' Police - everyone being 'encouraged' to look the other way. If only through fear.
Then note that so often charges are not being laid or prosecuted on a 'prima facie fault' basis but just political point scoring.
I hope Correia's is the first of several prosecutions of the region's mayors, current and former. I am not sure if vilification (to defame or slander) is the case here with Correia although many indeed rejoice in his downfall. Olhao's mayor certainly is being looked at from above for various planning violations, and Manuel da Luz and his crooked cronies in Portimao were arrested and as part of the police investigation into Portimao Urbis et al. Isabel Soares of Silves seems to have got away with large scale corruption as I am not aware of any further investigations since the Viga d'Ouro case but police do need to look at the collapse of Fabrica Ingles/Cork Museum and Soares' links to her brother-in-law who owned AliSuper. I think Correia should have been prosecuted but agree his crimes were very near the bottom of the scale.
The continuing vilification of Correia is in itself a scandal, seeing as he was one of the more energetic and less corrupt of the Algarve Mayors. What about Manuel da Luz and the missing millions? What about Desidério da Silva and the unplanned floods? And the former mayor of Silves? All of these deserve to be in court, but instead we have Macário Correia charged with peccadilloes.
The reason he has been pursued is because he would not accept the inefficiencies and corruption of central government. He upset the political élite and their cosy mutual backscratching.