2.3 The Story of Alcochete: Mustafá

To recap the last post we took a more in depth look at the prosecutor for the case, Cândida Vilar. We questioned whether there were grounds for the case to be tried as terrorism? We suggested from a statement provided by Fernando Mendes that actually Bruno de Carvalho had encouraged him to go to Alcochete on May 15th, 2018 and knew full well that some fans were intending on going and as to why, even if realistically he couldn't have envisaged what actually occurred on the day. We've already learned towards pointing the finger at Fernando Mendes and Tiago Silva for moral authorship of the attacks. Having let de Carvalho off the hook based on what was presented previously, in light of Fernando's comments we asked whether he could or should have been tried under Articles 26 and 27 of Portuguese law. Because if Mendes' claims were true then maybe he did have something to legally answer for. Especially if the players might have chosen to take a civil case out against him at a future point in time.

In our last series in the post dealing with the testimony of the GNR officers we learned about Casinha, the headquarters of the Juve Leo where cocaine was found and ownership of the drug was attributed to Mustafá. Depending on which report you read the total weight was either 20 grams, 15 grams or closer to 16 grams. It appears in Portugal that exact details don't always matter. I'm thinking about Bruno Jacinto's testimony that about 2 or 3 in the afternoon he'd gone to Casinha on the day of the attacks to speak to Tiago Silva (Bocas). Let's take the figure of 15g for ease and run with that. In the testimony of one of the GNR officers Mendes' lawyer wanted to know if the vial which had contained the drug had been tested for fingerprints and it transpired that it hadn't. It's been found in one small vessel, not in wraps which you'd assume was an indicator that the drugs weren't necessarily being dealt. Whilst the volume may have been on the high side for personal use, people bulk buy everything else so you can't rule it out. Portugal has probably some of the best laws in terms of addiction anywhere in Europe and way beyond the programme in the UK where it's only ever dealt with as a criminal offence. At the end of the day we're talking 15g not 15kg. Reminds me of the club trying to sue Rúben Ribeiro for €60m when €60k might have been more accurate.

Note drug trafficking relates to the cultivation and manufacturing of drugs, the transport and logistics, and the distribution and supply. Drug trafficking is best associated with South American criminal cartels and here we're talking about hundreds of millions of pounds worth of drugs such as heroin or cocaine. An 8-Ball is approximately 3.5 grams with a maximum street value of about £220 in the UK, noting this is 8 years on from the time we're discussing here. So let's say what's found is the equivalent to four 8-balls and two wraps. All in, you're talking appropriately £1,040 in today's money which certainly isn't insignificant but it's not going to have the late Pablo Escobar rolling in his grave. In the GNR testimony post the weight of the hashish wasn't reported but it's revealed that it was a grand total of… 3 grams. That's about £45 worth. Bonne chance on using those to secure a conviction of drug trafficking Cândida.

On one hand we have a prosecutor who wants to try the defendants on terrorism charges akin to what Al-Queda would be tried for if they attacked Portuguese territory, and the other Nuno Mendes being held on remand for charges of drug trafficking rather than possession with intent to supply. Pretend those two sides are aspirin and we'll drop them in a glass of water and watch as they fizz and slowly dissolve and then when they're finally done you can drink them and relieve your aching head. Which shoe do you think fits best? Terrorism and drug trafficking or aggression and possession with intent to supply? Bear in mind with the latter that Nuno Mendes is going to be held on remand for with no evidence that the drugs found were his. I'm starting to think I should probably have studied law and have wasted thirty years of my career.

So the finer details of the raid on Casinha are that two searches of the premises resulted in finding 15g of cocaine hidden in a rice jar. Now here the claim is made that the area is only accessible to Mustafá and his wife Cristina Amorim which one presumes is why the drugs found are attributed to have been his. The 3g of hashish were found inside a smoke extractor. Why his and not Cristina’s? I guess for her it's handy that many in Portugal are still sexist. They could well have been but I'll assume if they were that Mendes probably would have claimed ownership on her behalf. If he's the sort of person that would have stopped the attacks I'm inclined to believe he's the sort of character that wouldn't let his wife and mother of one of his children have potentially gone to prison for it. However like all things, I could be wrong. I'm just saying.

My favourite detail from the translated report;

One of the images captured and used in the investigation depicts a corticosteroid painting where six alleged 'traitors' of Juve Leo are denounced, identified with personal information.

A corticosteroid is a medical cream so fuck knows what that was supposed to be. We'll add that one to glaciers and icebergs from the last series.

So what did Mustafá say about possession of the cocaine found? Well he claims they belonged to Jójó. Remember him? In Mustafá’s words he's the retired carpenter "responsible for maintaining the 'Casinha' for the past five years. Jójó is the one who has the keys to the attic and Casinha, nobody else." He adds that Jójó "has a bed in the attic of the Casinha and sleeps above the bar.”

This took place in the interrogation conducted by the investigating judge in Barreiro, as part of the investigation into the attack on the Academy.

There's our old friend contradiction popping their head above the parapet once more. Give him a wave everyone. So the GNR claim the cocaine is found in a room only Mustafá and his wife have access to. Mustafá counters to confirm that Jójó, the caretaker for want of a better description, is the one who quite literally in this case, holds all the keys. Which quite frankly rings true to what little I know about caretakers. Certainly at our school he was the one with the keys who opened up every morning.

If you've searched the house of Mustafá as part of his arrest then you'd have had to take photos of what was found so the question would be: did they find keys pertaining to Casinha about his person or in his own property? At the first search we know that Jójó is present because it's confirmed he accompanied Mustafá and the GNR officers up to the attic. Why was he there? Because as had been ascertained he practically lived there. So why would anyone else really need a set of keys? It's not a house. Well actually it's a little house when translated into English but you know what I'm getting at here. It's basically a club house and we know drugs are regularly taken there because Bruno de Carvalho testified in his meeting at Casinha that some of those present were smoking hashish. Which begs the question again, drug trafficking, possession with intent to supply, or basically the Juve Leo’s own private stash for meetings and matchdays?

Sure possession is possession but there's a vast difference between a private members stash and claims of drug trafficking.

Let's go back to the first post in the series where I said I was going to speak hypothetically. Maybe what I should have wrote was akin to a science experiment. Here's my hypothesis, here's how I'm going to test it and here's my results. But the problem with the original story and the story within the story is you're never sure where it's going to take you next. So you basically have to write up what you find as you go along and sometimes you're going to find something that then changes something entirely that you wrote previously. I don't change my Sporting matchday posts to sound clever so I'm not about to start here. It's just a complicated journey we'll all have to go on together and actually it probably gives a good indication of how complex the prosecution made everything. In my opinion it needn't have been at all. 

I'm not Cândida Vilar, I don't have access to everything and everyone. I've no one I can ask questions to. At certain points I'm taking the testimony of one person and theorising what it might have meant in any given context. In the first series I didn't know how much hashish was found at Casinha. I should have guessed it was so insignificant an amount that this is why they don't mention it. Because the journalists want you the reader to fill in the blanks and expect the worst. My worst would have been to assume it had been a couple of bags of weed which really is neither here nor there again.

I'm going to hold my hands up…

All through the first series and into the second I have assumed that Fernando Mendes and the other members of the Juve Leo were at the airport not just waiting for the players and staff to berate them but because they were also flying home to Lisboa. I've never been to Madeira. I'd no idea of the distance between the Marítimo ground and Funchal Airport. I can now tell you having looked it up that it's 20 Kms which is 12.2 miles which is nothing at all really. As I mentioned in a previous post if you're not looking for something that you never knew existed can the blame be proportioned onto you? I think that was in the context of Bruno Jacinto claiming to have left messages for André Geraldes who had in turn claimed to never have received them. The first post in this new series takes a quote from Bruno de Carvalho's testimony where he claimed the two Mendes' had a falling out. Let's assume they did. However maybe let us assume that the falling out was simply owing to the attacks on Alcochete. Let's also assume that on the day of the game in Madeira against Marítimo, Mustafa watched the game from a cafe simply because he couldn't be arsed with it all. Can we fill in the missing blanks with new information?

Maybe this isn't a story within a story? Maybe this is a quest to fill in the missing blanks and to answer a question I've not yet formulated in my head? So what's the question I should be asking? Maybe it's as simple as to why, having read all the trial evidence, do we end up with Nuno Mendes, Bruno de Carvalho and Bruno Jacinto as the three who are accused of moral authorship of the attacks? Because everything reported and the evidence presented actually leaves you with the opposite conclusion that none of the three should have been charged with this offence. I've yet to find any grounds for it although in our last post we'd introduced new claims from Fernando Mendes against Bruno de Carvalho. However claiming what was said in a phone conversation is one thing, actually proving it is entirely another. I imagine somewhere in Portugal the call is recorded by the security services and screened for key words but then you'd have to get the Portuguese government to admit it spies on its own citizens like those in the UK or the US.

In the last post we touched on the possibility that the case had become a vanity project for Cândida Vilar. That simply picking the low hanging fruit wasn't enough for her. She'd forged a reputation for going after those at the head of organisations and potentially this is why she ends up going after both de Carvalho and Nuno Mendes. Yet the evidence doesn't support there was a case to be made against either man. In fact the summary was that Fernando Mendes should have had the moral authorship laid at his door and if you were going to charge de Carvalho it would have been under Articles 26 and 27 of the Portuguese statute. But what if I'm wrong? What if there is evidence to suggest Nuno Mendes does have a link to the attacks?

Above we're trying to discredit the case against Nuno Mendes for drug trafficking because that doesn't add up either. I'm not claiming he doesn't know there's drugs on the premises. I'm not claiming that if there are illicit activities taking place that he doesn't benefit financially. Finding drugs is one thing, finding evidence of possession with intent to supply is another. Because there's no evidence of this presented by the GNR officers. If you can't prove possession with intent to supply then how the fuck do you make the leap to drug trafficking? Possession for personal use and possession with intent to supply is a small but manageable leap. However we've no weighing scales, no large sums of cash, the cocaine is in a vial and not in wraps. I don't even know what a wrap looks like. I've testified in the last series that alcohol was my drug of choice. I'd assume you'd get it in a tiny plastic clip bag or in cling film with the end twisted but don't quote me on that. If you put a gram of salt, sugar, talc, flour and coke in front of me now and said which one is which then I'd discount the first two being granular. Maybe I'd get the flour but I'd be buggered if I can tell you which was which from the remaining two. Point being clearly I'm not an expert on drug dealing. But I know enough to assume that if I wanted to arrest you for a minimum of possession with intent to supply just on a basic level let alone try to prove drug trafficking, I'd need to find some evidence of the intent to supply. Unless they did it by eye and scooped it out with a Bic pen lid and you had to consume goods there and then.

Occam's razor is a problem solving principle stating that when faced with competing explanations for the same phenomenon, you should prefer the one that makes the fewest assumptions and posits the fewest entities. It acts as a guiding heuristic rather than an absolute rule.

Core Philosophy

The Law of Parsimony: Also known as lex parsimoniae, it urges you to "shave off" unnecessary complications.

Origins: Attributed to 14th-century English Franciscan friar and philosopher William of Ockham, who famously stated: "Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity."

Rule of Thumb: It does not mean the simplest answer is guaranteed to be true, but rather that it is the best starting point for investigation.

Therefore is it maybe right to reason that drugs found in the supporters bar were not part of a huge drug trafficking operation, neither were they samples of a large dose they had on order from a Neapolitan drugs cartel. Most likely answer being as Mustafá suggested they were in fact Jójó’s for personal consumption. Maybe he used them to curry favour with certain members when they visited? Chop them out a little line as a thank you. Because sometimes the simplest explanation really is the most likely. Hold that thought in the back of your mind.

So let’s return to the point raised above about the airport and what I had previously assumed was the case that those fans in attendance, including Fernando Mendes and Tiago Silva were there because they were also returning home and that Bruno Jacinto and Nuno Mendes were the ones who returned a day later. It hadn’t crossed my mind that the fans would have travelled specifically to berate the players and then travel back into Madeira because clearly I’m not that type of person.

In early December, 2018 Correio da Manhã the Portuguese news outlet reported that it had gained access to the interrogation of Mustafá carried out on November the 14th.

In it he denies claims made by Bruno Jacinto, the former Sporting fan liaison officer, that he had received the green light from de Carvalho to proceed with the invasion of Alcochete. "It's completely false, completely false," he assured the investigating judge.

"I don't confirm that the president has given us carte blanche. I didn't tell anyone that. I only spoke to them [Bruno Jacinto and Fernando Mendes] on the way back from Madeira about the [Marítimo-Sporting] game and the situation of Fernando Mendes going to the airport." Mustafá said he had reprimanded Fernando for going to the airport, where he argued with the players and even made threats: "Mas tu estás a passar-te?" – “Are you crazy?”

So now we can assume that at least Fernando Mendes had gone and come back from the airport. Fernando Mendes we now know travels back to Lisbon with Nuno and Bruno Jacinto. We now know Nuno reprimands Fernando. Is this safe to suggest this is the point they actually had their falling out? Note also though his reference at the start to Bruno de Carvalho and relate it to the last post and Candida Vilar looking to paint the words “do whatever you want,” in a different light and context.

Not for the first time we have a total contradiction in the testimony of the different parties involved. Fernando Mendes in his interview given to Diário de Notícias alleged that de Carvalho told him to go to the Alcochete Academy to "put pressure on them [the players] and give them a good talking to.”

Far from any involvement with the attacks as is suggested by the prosecution, Nuno Mendes claims that actually he only learned of them "at 5:20 pm through CMTV." Note if this seems very quickly for news of the attacks to have broken that there are several testimonies of journalists having been present outside the academy. I’m not aware if this is an everyday occurrence for Sporting CP or if they had a specific reason for having been in attendance this particular day but it does at least explain away how these reports were made so soon after the attacks had occurred. Wow we answered a question before it had even been asked. Let's hope the rest that follows will be as simple to solve. I'm not holding my breath and neither should any of you quite frankly.

Nuno Mendes also confirmed he had not been a member of the WhatsApp groups - 'Academia Amanhã', 'Exército Invencível' and 'Piranhas on Tour'. I’m not sure what the Piranhas refers to but even I know that Amanhã is tomorrow so it must have been a hastily organised group given the game was on the Sunday, thus the assumption is the group was set up on the Monday and the attacks took place on the Tuesday. In total 43 people had been added to the groups. Exército Invencível - Invincible Army. Sounds more like toy soldiers but never mind. 

So let’s say hypothetically now that Fernando Mendes having had a dressing down from Nuno Mendes has a dose of the “fuck yous” to Mustafá. He’s super pissed with both the leader and with Acuña who he feels has slighted him. Tiago Silva feels slighted with Rodrigo Battaglia. They both agree to take action, leave Nuno Mendes out of the loop, setup a WhatsApp group with enough names who might take action that goes beyond just having a little chat and that’s how quickly everything was planned, it was all quite reactionary to the events that unfolded in Madeira but also quite deliberate in nature and to keep it from under the nose of Nuno Mendes and ultimately if they’d had a disagreement coming back from Madeira then ultimately they’d have completely fallen out following the attacks and by the time Fernando is arrested in June he’s completely paranoid about the chance of reprisal attacks by other members of the Juve Leo.

Okay so maybe a couple of added layers away from Occam's razor there but still we can't be far from the truth because most of that is in the evidence trail and testimony provided.

Though you will be forgiven for feeling like you're stuck on a giant roundabout going around and around trying to find which exit you should be taking. Maybe we're all just driving around Milton Keynes? 

It could be worth thinking about who we're predisposed to believe when it all comes down to it? Personally I'm inclined to believe that Bocas in his testimony to the courts was telling the truth in that Mustafá wasn't included in the planning of the attacks. Mustafá in turn claiming he'd reprimanded Fernando for going to the airport asking “Are you crazy?” If he's questioning why you would have gone to the airport then it's not hard to deduce and surmise that he wouldn't have given the green light to go to Alcochete. Remember the suggestion in the last post was that so incensed was Fernando Mendes at Marcus Acuña that given the chance he would have attacked the player there and then? Maybe he realises that getting his own hands dirty isn't the wisest of moves. Now what we have never fully ascertained, or if we have its passed me by, is whether Fernando was in the WhatsApp groups? As always more questions they answers. If he wasn't in them was he aware of them? More likely given he was with Tiago Silva on the afternoon of the attacks as confirmed by Bruno Jacinto. 

I'm starting to feel like a fly caught in an intricate spiders web that I can't get out of. Not for the first time I'm questioning why I started this thing and why I keep pulling at loose threads? We'll return with something definitely more concrete in our next part. Anyone fancy the home game against GD Chaves from late 2018? We'll see you all next time.