2.1 The story of Alcochete: The story within the story

This new series follows on from the Rise and Fall of Bruno de Carvalho the former president of Sporting Clube de Portugal. Rather thoughtfully of me (if you've not read it) I've left a clue in the title in what it was in regards to. His final downfall was accelerated by the attacks on players and staff at the clubs training ground based in Alcochete on May 15th, 2018. We followed the trial in full (or close enough)and those posts are still available to read and won't be taken offline or hidden behind a paywall so we'd suggest you go back and read those first to understand the context and nuances of what is going to follow on here. I'm afraid without that context some of what follows in this series might not fully make sense otherwise.

But long story short, de Carvalho, Bruno Jacinto the club’s liaison officer and Nuno Mendes more commonly known as Mustafá, the leader of the Sporting claques Juve Leo were charged with masterminding the attacks. The prosecution would be tried as a terror attack. In addition Mustafá was charged with drug trafficking and held on remand until the final day of testimony heard from the witnesses. If you don't want to know the scores then don't continue, come back when you're up to speed with everything. For everyone else we'll continue onto the new series…

So if you followed the trial posts I think it's safe to suggest that you could be forgiven for thinking afterwards that with the subsequent acquittal of the two Bruno's; Jacinto and de Carvalho, that it felt like a complete waste of time. I tried to find out what the entire cost of the trials came to but sadly ran into a dead end. But given the sheer scale and length of time that it ran for, it had to have been at a very minimum in the hundreds of thousands of euros if not millions by the time it had finished. If the case presented against those two men seemed ridiculous enough, then the one against Nuno Mendes, more commonly known as Mustafá bordered on being quite frankly ridiculous, not only in the charges of drug trafficking against him, but the charge of moral authorship of the attacks. I find it quite frightening researching the trials that you can put someone on trial with basically the flimsiest of evidence and not only that but hold a man on remand. Now I'm not suggesting the man was an angel, far from it in fact. As one of the GNR officers pointed out in court one of his nicknames was terror which paints a certain picture in your head. Mind you two of my nicknames over the years have been trouble and nightmare so that may be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. However I just have a smart mouth and quick brain that gets me into trouble. Whilst Mustafá was acquitted here, we did learn he was sentenced for another case not connected with this story. Yet that aside, having told the story of what happened I couldn't help but wonder if there was a story inside the story that should have been told instead?

There was no evidence of Mustafá being involved in the planning or the execution of the attacks that took place. In fact the total lack of evidence provided proved the complete opposite, that he had zero to do with it. There was testimony given to the courts by some of the defendants like Tiago Silva who confirmed Mustafá had deliberately been left out of the planning. Not only that we heard defendants confirm had he been present that he would have been the one who'd have stopped the attack. Even Judge Pires, who tried the case seemed in total agreement with that point. You couldn't have gotten further from from the case the prosecutor Cândida Vilar was trying to make against him if you had deliberately tried. Only on the last day of evidence was he released from remand, some eight months later. Again that related to the drug trafficking charges, however there was no evidence to support the cocaine found at Casinha, headquarters of the Juve Leo was his.

The testimony that jumped out to me in relation to Mustafá the most was the line from Bruno de Carvalho, the very last of the 44 defendants to have been heard when he alluded to a possible falling out between the two Mendes', Nuno and Fernando. The latter also being one of the under leaders of the Juve Leo and who had been present at the attacks and done nothing to prevent them despite 14 of those who took part being members of the Juve Leo.

With that in mind maybe it's not a case of how could we tell the story in a different light, but how should we have told the story in a different light and in turn how should the prosecution have presented the case to the courts, especially in respects of the moral authorship of the attacks? 

If I had access to both men I'd start by asking them what their relationship was like around the spring of 2018 and then hope they both spoke English. Given Mustafá was sent down on remand for a series of assumptions, I'm not going to feel bad for presenting what I'd like to call hypotheticals. I'm not going to allege anything, but merely say, hypothetically if this was the case then maybe you could tell the story a different way. I will however use reports in the Portuguese media wherever possible to support what follows and again state known elements from the story already told to try and weave it all together and make everything feel like it has some more sense to it all. There's a danger I throw up more questions than answers but when you've come this far with me, surely I can't have been the only one thinking at the end of it all that none of it really added up? What exactly was missing? Moreover can we find that and fill in some of the missing blanks to make it make more sense?

In every group where a leader is involved there will normally sit one person alone at the top. This is as true today as it was in the time of Roman Emperor's, the Pharaoh's in Egypt, Genghis Khan and the Mongols…I think you get the picture. There's always people who have their eyes set on toppling that power. So as we know Mustafá was the recognised leader of the Juve Leo and whilst Fernando Mendes is described as one of the leaders, he's not actually the top dog. So let's propose that Fernando did in fact see himself as the man who should actually be wearing the crown. Let's suppose that this was the reason around the spring of 2018 that frictions started, assuming that Bruno de Carvalho was telling the truth about their falling out. Sadly I can't guarantee that this statement was true, given his testimony contradicted in the main everyone else's that come before him. Also, to put it more bluntly, I think the man is full of shit. 

Now we know Mustafá was present at the meeting in early April of 2018 when de Carvalho was also present at which he used the much debated line “do what you want.” Which turned out to be nothing more than his exit line on a night his ego took a severe bashing from Juve Leo members present and he had to apologise profusely for a multitude of things. Sometime between that meeting and the last game of the season in Madeira, let's suggest the two Mendes' did indeed have a falling out. Maybe it was in Madeira itself because Mustafá testified that he did not attend the game? He's the leader of the largest claques and trust me when I write that they had access to tickets in advance for games. I'll reference that in another later post. So he definitely didn't go because he couldn't get a ticket. We do know that what he chose to do was to disassociate himself from the other members of the Juve Leo. Does that strike you as being slightly odd at all? He's the leader of the group and he has deliberately chosen to watch the game not at the ground, not leading the Juve Leo, but instead in a cafe and distance himself from them all. I mean that does personally strike me as being very odd. I've seen the photos of him at the front of the stands at other games. This is an active leader. Think Italian ultras with a megaphone starting the chants you hear, this was also Nuno Mendes. Yet today for the last game of the season against Marítimo in Madeira, this Nuno Mendes is in a cafe watching the game. 

We know a month previous to this that he's still recognised as the leader because he claims in his testimony that de Carvalho told him through Geraldes that he wanted to be at the meeting. No surprise to learn that de Carvalho then refutes that claim in his own testimony, but sorry Bruno back in your box you go we're not talking about you now. We'll let you out again if and when we need you. 

So you have Mustafá in a cafe, Fernando Mendes and company at the game itself and trouble first occurs after the final whistle. We've previously established that it's a small airport in Madeira so there's not going to be an abundance of flights in and out every day, but we also know for whatever reason that Mustafá didn't travel on the same flight back, he went the next day as did Bruno Jacinto the club liaison officer. We know that because he claims that they spoke on the flight. Therefore we know that he's not present at the airport when the alleged war of words breaks out directly between Marcus Acuña and Fernando Mendes where the latter ensues that the former called his mother a whore, or words to that effect before Rodrigo Battaglia then stepped in and insulted Tiago Silva. So aggrieved and incensed by Acuña was Fernando that he'd been on the phone to de Carvalho demanding the players address. Possible security threat there anyone? Do we think that the current club president Federico Varandas faced with the same situation now might think about calling the PSP? I think it's pretty safe to assume that he would. Fernando tells the players at the airport he'll be seeing them in Alcochete. Is that not a direct threat? I know words can be misconstrued but by all accounts Fernando is a very angry man in the airport at this juncture. Again a potential security threat to the players welfare which was not acted upon. We've heard how de Carvalho admits to saying “do what you want,” at the meeting at Cashina in the context of him being fed up and just wanting to leave. Fernando claims that he'd agreed to continue the conversation he had with Jorge Jesus at the airport after he'd tried to intervene and here you can imagine that Jesus was doing the same thing as de Carvalho had done a month earlier in the April meeting and had basically just gone ‘yeah whatever.’ You don't envisage that he whipped out his diary and said ‘I can squeeze you in between tactics and training, how does that grab you?’ Fernando is not the only one incensed because Tiago Silva now has a vendetta with Rodrigo Battaglia and he feels personally slighted. All these instances added together are what led to three new WhatsApp groups being formed to plan an trip to Alcochete. You've got other fans angry at Rui Patrício for his error at the end of the game. Many fans are claiming this group of players, as we say in England - are not fit to wear the shirt. Whilst this is all kicking off, Nuno Mendes has got his feet up having a nice latte in a cafe none the wiser. 

Tiago Silva admits that Nuno Mendes wasn't added to the group. Why? Well we have to assume because he would have shut the whole thing down. You can imagine certain fans on a plane all angry and one of them suggests they should go to Alcochete to confront the players. Maybe one suggests starting a WhatsApp group. Sounds very plausible so far doesn't it? But wait, let's remember that in the testimony that we heard that a month previous the Juve Leo let it known that they intended to go to Alcochete and that one of Vasco Santos or Geraldes, maybe both, presumed they changed their minds because they'd heard nothing more. So was this even longer in the planning and the simple reason they'd heard no more is because what they had planned wasn't a sit around the table discussion and it had always been something more? Or maybe it was still being planned and had the airport incident not happened which turned into the catalyst then it wouldn't have escalated to the point that it eventually did? As hypotheticals go, and I don't want to blow my own trumpet here, but so far even if it's just in my own little head it's making way more sense than the case the prosecution put forward. Also bear in mind that unlike me, they actually had access to the messages in the WhatsApp groups. Give me those messages and a translator and I'll find you means and motive to present to a judge, plus testimony for the defence from the players, and I'd call Bruno de Carvalho as a witness to testify to what he'd told Marcus Acuña about Fernando Mendes ringing him wanting his address. Throw in how he told them he'd see them at Alcochete and you'll forgive me for thinking that I've got the solid foundation for a prosecution case that I could make stick in court. I'd also like access to Gelson's phone record specifically to gain access to the message he claims he received warning him about the attacks. Who was it from? At what time? And what did he do with that information?

Now de Carvalho, you can come out of your box for a second or two, he admits that he doesn't like Fernando, however he does make a point of claiming to really like Nuno. ‘He's such a joker, he really makes me laugh.’ Now would there be any reason for de Carvalho to want to keep him onside specifically? Any examples you can think of whereby if they were true, it would be handy if they didn't come to light and be confirmed by Mustafá? Such as… such as claims by William Carvalho that Mustafá has told him de Carvalho had ordered him to attack their cars? Given William provided it in his sworn testimony, he clearly believes it to be true. Let us allow for the possibility that yes Mustafá tells him it but was only winding him up. Normally if that were true the person will normally crack at some point and admit that it was just a wind up but William is adamant it's true. There's clearly a high level of disdain between de Carvalho and William, the former brands him a liar and claims that whenever he got in trouble he used the claques to bail him out. We know that on the day of the attacks that William identified four of them so let's say there is some basis to de Carvalho's claims that he used the Claques to bail him out of sticky situations. Footballers behaving badly is not a new phenomenon. How do I know? Because I have evidence of a player from the Premier League club I had involvement in and I had formed a close friendship with one of the women who sent me his text messages. We've also learned that Rui Patrício and de Carvalho clearly also had disdain for each other and we've learned that in the end the club captain, fed up with the abuse, just ignores his messages and stops talking to him altogether. Four players mentioned here who we know from testimony were specifically the four players that the attackers were looking for. Tiago Silva admits in his court testimony that he went looking for Battaglia on the day. Fernando Mendes admits he spoke to de Carvalho in anger about Acuña. De Carvalho states that he had people calling him all night wanting to know Acuña’s home address and then clarified that was Fernando Mendes if not others as well. So are we painting a picture whereby very early on we can find two individuals who should have been the ones on trial for moral authorship of the attacks? Do we have probable cause? Do we have motive? Do we have a string of WhatsApp group messages within which certain elements can clearly be identified as having an involvement in the planning of the attacks alongside the fact they happened to be present on the day? The first two are hypothetical, the last one is a fact. 

Key Aspects of Probable Cause

Definition: A "fair probability" or reasonable grounds to believe evidence of a crime exists or a crime was committed.

Requirement: It is essential for law enforcement to conduct lawful searches without consent, make arrests without a warrant, or obtain a warrant from a magistrate.

Standard Level: It is higher than "reasonable suspicion" (used for temporary stops) but lower than "beyond a reasonable doubt" (used for convictions).

Totality of Circumstances: Courts analyse all known facts together rather than focusing on a single, isolated fact.

The court cases commenced in November of 2019 as we've previously ascertained. We've heard time and time again that Bruno de Carvalho, Bruno Jacinto and Nuno Mendes are the three men the prosecution claims are the masterminds of the attack. We've told you the story from start to finish how it was presented by Cândida Vilar to the judges. So what if we throw you a curve ball in our retelling of the story. What if we old you that just one month after the attacks, CM Jornal in Portugal ran a story on June 8th, 2018 under the headline: ‘Mendes is the mastermind behind the attack on Sporting in Alcochete’? And when they state Mendes, let's make it clear it's not Nuno they're going to be talking about, it's going to be Fernando. 

That article in full;

Mendes is the mastermind behind the attack on Sporting in Alcochete.

The former leader of the fan group was relieved when he realised that those surrounding him were the police, because he feared a rival faction of Juve Leo.

Fernando Mendes is the mastermind and executor of the Alcochete attack. This is the thesis defended by the Public Prosecutor's Office, which, in the warrants that led to the arrest of the former head of Juve Leo two days ago, requests the application of preventive detention for that suspect. The same coercive measure is requested for the other three detainees – including Nuno Torres, the driver of the BMW. The prosecutor says that all committed the crime of terrorism and all are responsible for the attacks in Alcochete. But she does not rule out the possibility that there were other masterminds behind the criminal act.

According to the investigation, which included the participation of the GNR and PSP two days ago, Mendes is one of the ringleaders who planned the visit to the training ground to demand explanations for the players' poor performance. He did so in conjunction with 'Aleluia', who was also arrested, and Nuno Torres, who prepared the escape.

The four suspects – Joaquim Costa, from Juve Leo, was also arrested – will only begin to be questioned today. They were only identified yesterday afternoon by the investigating judge.

However, according to Correio da Manhã, when approached by police at his home the night before last, Fernando Mendes thought it was a rival attack. The police were in plain clothes, and the former leader of the supporters' group immediately called a friend to call the PSP (Portuguese police). Upon realising they were actually law enforcement officers, he seemed 'relieved'. Fernando Mendes was afraid of the current leaders of the Juve Leo supporters' group, who disliked the media attention following the incidents at the academy. Bruno de Carvalho also announced that he was withdrawing his support for the Sporting supporters' group.

Judge defends terrorism theory

Cândida Vilar, the prosecutor who issued the arrest warrants for the four members of Juve Leo, submitted an opinion arguing that this constitutes terrorism. The magistrate states that the current legal framework allows for the classification of a group of supporters of a sports association who intend to slap athletes to intimidate them as a terrorist organisation.

"It is clear that an association of this nature will not be as dangerous to the protected legal interests as a terrorist organisation of fundamentalist inspiration [Daesh or Al-Qaeda], but the breadth of the applicable penal framework will allow for the necessary differentiations in determining the specific sentence," clarifies the prosecutor, who says that this is a terrorist act and not a terrorist organisation.

"The aforementioned law allows for the crime of terrorist organisation without the crime of terrorism and, more frequently, the crime of terrorism without a terrorist organisation [whether carried out by a lone perpetrator or perpetrated by an informal group not linked to an organisation in the legal-penal sense]. In the case under analysis, there is simply a situation of co-authorship, expressed in a joint decision and a joint execution," concludes the prosecutor, who again imputes the crime of terrorism to the defendants now detained by the police authorities.

So news flash. That month again - June 2018. If you're thinking I've deliberately mislead you through several thousand words reporting the case I promise you I haven't. If you asked me my memory of the entire affair before I started this series it wouldn't have been very detailed. I knew de Carvalho had been charged with the man behind it all and got off. I knew Bas Dost came off the worst from the attacks, that we lost the Taça de Portugal final on the Sunday, that players rescinded their contracts, and truthfully, not much else. So what I've presented to date in the first series is framed exactly how the Portuguese media framed it at the time. If de Carvalho hadn't been named as one of the three masterminds then I might not have gone into any detail about the court cases at all so don't blame me, blame Cândida Vilar. Everything was new to me other than the three or four basic facts I've just alluded to. Yes I added a running commentary throughout and yes if I was a lawyer then a judge would say I was leading the witness, but had I left all of my thoughts out, I'm pretty sure most of you who've read it would have been left with the same conclusion that something didn't add up and that when they gave the sentences out, something really didn't add up at all. If Agatha Christie wrote her murder mystery novels that same way she wouldn't have sold ten copies. You certainly couldn't have made a movie about it with that as the script; Three men accused of planning a terror attack in Portugal and it turns out at the end of the movie the people standing in the car park of Alcochete having a mothers meeting were actually the moral authors. I know people like a whodunnit with a twist at the end but come on peoples. Now admittedly I knew who did it way before I finished my research but it was only when I'd written the Bruno de Carvalho testimony piece and clicked on some links on those articles having finally found his testimony did I stumble on the article above. When I say who did it, maybe I actually mean to say - I knew who didn't do it. Reading just the opening three sessions of the trial it already didn't add up as to why those three men were charged with moral authorship and then reading that article I was thinking - now I know why it didn't make any fucking sense to me. 

So let's go through that article and link some of the hypotheticals I came up with before it. It states that Fernando Mendes was relieved when it transpired that those there surrounding him were police officers. Now that part actually reads like a movie script that could have been in a Scorsese film where the mob bosses have just ordered a hit to take place. Let's rewind back to de Carvalho's suggestions that the two Mendes' have had a falling out. How we'd learned in testimony that Nuno wouldn't have planned something like that, in fact he'd have tried to stop it. So let's surmise that with Juve Leo at the centre of investigations that either he, or the other members are super pissed at Fernando for bringing heat down on them and adding unwarranted attention. Because yes whilst it was proven eventually that 14 of their members were part of the attackers, when all was said and done it's never made clear other than in some of the last testimony from the defendants in the case that it wasn't a specific attack carried out wholly by the claques of Juve Leo. They had a lot of outside help. 

‘Fernando Mendes is the mastermind and executor of the Alcochete attack. This is the thesis defended by the Public Prosecutor's Office.’

‘Cândida Vilar, the prosecutor, issued the arrest warrants for the four members of Juve Leo.’

Consider both those statements made in the article. This is seventeen months before Vilar then goes to prosecute three totally different men for the moral authorship and of having been the masterminds. 

So what are you thinking right now I wonder? Why did outlets in the Portuguese media publish this and then everyone just ran with the case as presented months later without ever questioning it? They literally just reported what had been said in court. No one did their maths homework with their working out showing. Maybe you think I'm clutching at straws? Well you'd be entitled to your own opinion. What if the prosecution actually wanted to try to prosecute a different case entirely? Were their vendettas at play, personal scores to settle? As always there are so many new questions and sadly they come with no answers… yet. He writes hopefully.

“Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose!”

Join us next time when we'll continue to lift the lid on a wealth of information that would give the trials a very different light to what we were told when they finally got underway.