2.7 The Story of Alcochete: Mustafá's time to roar
So let's recap the last post. Full admission it was a bit box tricky. But it did provide us with examples of the lengths that the defendants legal teams were going to have the cases thrown out or at least heard on more realistic charges. It feels like we've all these open goals continually missed from start to finish so I'm leading the trail of breadcrumbs for you to follow all the way through to the final conclusion. But enough recapping because today's the big one…
Finally it the was time for me to re-write up the testimony
of Nuno Mendes and hope to fucking God I didn't lose it again for a second
time…
Just in case you happen to be randomly parachuting into this
post let's confirm that Nuno Mendes, better known as Mustafá and to some, even
by the moniker of Terror, is the leader of the Juve Leo, Sporting CP’s oldest
and largest claques. He is one of three men accused of being the mastermind of
the attacks on Alcochete on May the 15th, 2018. He is the only defendant in the
case to still be held on remand, this was on charges of drug trafficking after
cocaine was found at Casinha, headquarters of the Juve Leo.
As always, the testimony shown here has been translated from
Portuguese and I've been done dirty by it several times in both series. For
some reason it cannot cope with grammar or the context of which people
mentioned are male or female, so hand on heart where I've made minor
alterations I've not done it to intentionally mislead but only to use the word
or words I thought were correct in context. You can sue me but 100% of fuck all
is still going to be fuck all. Oh I also found out that sometimes it just ignores
huge chunks of text entirely and rather than translate it tries to also
summarise it for you as well. NOT WHAT I FUCKING ASKED FOR.
So on with the post…
In his testimony to the court heard on the 34th session,
Nuno Mendes made it abundantly clear that he was at home on the day of the attacks…
Asleep…
So that's ensuring his master plan was running clockwork…
whilst asleep…
Now you might need to cast your minds back to the testimony
of some of the actual attackers here who, to paraphrase, said they had turned
up to Alcochete to find Mendes wasn't present and that it was only then they'd
begun to realise that perhaps this wasn't what had been sold to them in the
three WhatsApp groups. Clearly it would be handy to have the contents of the
messages but sadly we don't, so swiftly moving on…
We've already tied the accusations of drug trafficking up in
a neat bow in a previous post. So let's make it clear that whilst his name is
used within the WhatsApp groups, if any member had bothered to take 30 seconds
to scroll down and see who was listed, then they'd have not found him in any of
the three. Why wasn’t he added? I imagine the dressing down he gave Fernando
Mendes for going to the airport and arguing with the players would give you a
clue when he asks, “Are you crazy?” Here maybe the answer was yes, he was quite
crazy. In truth, we could speculate to the cows come home why he’s not included
in the any of the three groups. We can join Vilar as a conspiracy theorist,
suggest that maybe it's a mafia type thing, of course you don't include the boss
and incriminate him directly. The GNR assumed he'd have to have signed off on
it presumably based on prior intelligence that nothing ever happened without
the consent of the man at the top. But let's go with Occam's razor again to
suggest that the simplest explanation is also the most likely one and that the
plans were deliberately concealed from him, and as to why? Because he wouldn't
have said yes to them. He already disagreed with Fernando Mendes and the other
members of the claques’ actions at Funchal airport in Madeira so it stands to
reason that if he's not impressed to learn of those then he's definitely not
going to give the go ahead here. Yet this does really beg the question of what
sort of due diligence the GNR and prosecution carried out? Because you must
know damn well that if you wore an outfit made solely of tracing paper to court
that people will easily see through it. This is one of three men you claim to
be the mastermind behind the attacks. If it wouldn't have taken members in the
group 30 seconds to scroll through and not find Nuno Mendes’ name in it and say
it took the GNR an additional twenty minutes to actually cross reference all
the mobile numbers that were shown, then they've got their own evidence that
there is no evidence initially suggestive of his involvement or sign off on
what happened. If you are the prosecutor or the GNR, then perhaps despite all
your misgivings about the man and his character you might not want to end up
with egg on your face especially when you've trumped up the charges to those of
terrorism. Look we know the man isn't an angel by now but in these two specific
instances he's been properly shafted by the prosecution who have no hard and
fast evidence against him. My sympathy for Bruno de Carvalho was negligible at
best. Whereas here I've a huge deal of sympathy for Nuno Mendes. He's been
royally stitched up like a kipper. In fact if you were going to make any claim
around a conspiracy theory it's that the drugs were planted at Casinha and his
name deliberately thrown into the groups that he'd been left out of. But I'm
not a conspiracy theorist and of course we all know that the Americans put a
man on the moon and left a flag there.
Mustafá admittedly was in certain Juve Leo WhatsApp groups.
However following the 2-1 defeat in Maderia, he hadn't bothered to respond to
any of them. So, he's either like me and best left to sulk when Sporting lose
or he's really fed up of everyone after what happened at the airports. Or maybe
he just forgot his charger and was too tight to buy another one in Madeira? Or
maybe the wife was nagging him for going to the island and not taking her with
him. Maybe actually she was there with him? See as always more questions than
answers and you can see how my brain works at lightning speed like a computer
processor. See how easily conspiracy theories can be started? It doesn't take
much does it? You could claim that Fernando Mendes having been told he has leukaemia
and needed a bone marrow transplant had decided he had nothing to live for and
wanted to take vengeance out on Marcus Acuña for affronting his late mother. I
mean some fucking idiot would buy it. I'm not selling it by the way I quickly
hasten to add.
Let's see if we can genuinely tie up some more loose ends…
Maybe unsurprisingly Mustafá began his testimony by
complaining about having been held on remand, something he considered unfair,
especially owing to the lack of concrete evidence against him. Judge Pires
referred him to the facts of the accusation, and the steps taken for ‘better or
worse’ were approved by the Court of Appeal.
In his opening statement to the court, I'll pick out the
words which jumped out at me the most: “What happened here is a shame.” I
can confirm that is definitely not how Bruno de Carvalho opened his testimony.
Mustafá confirms his role within the claques and adds
context of what the responsibilities are of other senior members in the group:
"I have been president of the Juve Leo since 2011,
always with Daniel Samico as vice-president. Fernando Mendes? I had a good
relationship with him but it had nothing to do with the staff or the
management, only with the brand's merchandising. Then Gustavo Tavares was the
person who was in charge of the material, the merchandising part and was also
part of the staff. Tiago Silva [Bocas] was also on the staff, he had the
ticketing part. Válter Semedo was there, he was there more with us, more with
me, he helped with the choreographies, he was a person close to me. Emanuel
Calças was head of the Leiria nucleus and helped with the material, banners,
flags.”
Mustafá confirms that he hadn't been at Alcochete adding:
"I wish I was," to which the Judge Pires interestingly and rather
tellingly replied: "I know, everyone says you could have prevented it
all.”
Note - If you're shouting going ‘why the fuck was he on
trial then as the mastermind of the attacks when actually he's the only man
with the power to have prevented it?’ then I'd say you can be forgiven.
Mustafá explains the reasons why he did not go to the game
in Madeira: "I have been going to Madeira for 10 years and watching the
game in that café. It is the café of the [Sporting] members of Marítimo. This
was the only time I saw Fernando, Tiago and Válter, it was because of the
tickets for that game. By the way, I'm glad Válter remembered because William
still hasn't paid those four tickets he wanted for the Cup final… But that
doesn't matter now…. I had drunk too much. I was already suffering from the night
before. I stayed in the café because I ended up giving away my ticket. When the
game was over I moved to the apartment. When I arrived my phone ran out of
battery. What appeared on TV, at the airport, did not have the impact at that
time that it did three days later, when it was seen. Madam, that's what I saw.
The next day, on Monday, I went to the market to pick up some passion fruit, I
went to the airport and that's when I saw Fernando, Bruno Jacinto, the
president of the Board, the…”
At this point he's cut off by Judge Pires: “But let's get to
the facts, come on…”
“Fernando Mendes told me that Acuña had lacked any respect
for him, that his mother had died a short time ago. For me it was his personal
thing, when we got on the plane it died for me, completely.”
Mustafá explained that he wasn't aware of the messages of
the groups where the attack was planned.
JP: “You have to listen to me, there are a lot of people
involving your name, if it wasn't like that you wouldn't be there…”
Mustafá responded: “I see no reason for these messages,
nothing that happened is normal. It's not normal, in ten years with Samico we
acted together, we spoke as a board and it was always like that, as an
Association. That's why I don't understand, they didn't talk to me!”
He then continues with what happened when he arrived back
from Madeira.
"I arrived at half past four, five in Lisbon. I passed
by, picked up my daughter, went to the house in Charneca. I disconnected
completely.”
He confirms after every game his focus on Sporting switches
off and that his sole focus then always turns to that of his family. He begins
to talk about the invasion confirming that he neither gave the order or had any
knowledge of it. "On the 15th I only woke up to eat Cristina's chicken
soup. I went back to sleep, I didn't even leave the house. I was woken up with
her telling me to go see what had happened.”
Note - Importantly it is established that on the day of the
attacks on May 15th, 2018 Mustafá is at home with his phone and television
turned off. He is totally disconnected with the world, mostly sleeping. He's
definitely not busy co-ordinating an invasion of Alcochete. If his phone is
switched off then no one who claims to have phoned him could have done so
(William). Oh and if you have parachuted in, Cristina is his wife…who
apparently makes chicken soup.
Do you still have some of those paracetamol I gave you
before because I think I could do with taking a couple.
Judge Pires: “Let's talk now about the meeting that took
place at Cashina…”
Nuno Mendes: “The famous meeting on April 7th…”
JP: "How did that happen?"
Mustafa discusses the meeting in April after the defeat to
Atlético held at Casinha. The reason to hold it had been: "due to internal
problems of the Juve Leo; Broken buses, broken vans, two members arrested, one
member in the hospital. What happened in Madrid was serious, so much so that I
only returned on Friday, I was one of the last to return from Madrid.”
"Samico became aware of what had happened. In my anger,
I scheduled the meeting for Saturday and on Saturday I received a call from
André Geraldes saying that the president wanted to go to the meeting (how he
knew there was a meeting, I don't know). To this day I don't know what Bruno de
Carvalho's (Facebook) post was; my focus was on Juve Leo, I didn't care about
the posts, only later did I find out what was going on. An hour and a half, two
hours before, he said that the president would be there. Him, André Geraldes,
Vasco Santos and his security guard."
JP: "Was it normal?"
NM: “To have our meetings? Yes. That meeting the members
knew it was about the Juve Leo.”
"I passed the turn to speak next to the president, and
he started to justify himself. In the president's opinion, that post was not a
reason for there to be any issues but that if there were then for that he would
apologise. But the arrogance, the way he spoke, the way he told people to shut
up... There was one who told him 'Don't tell me to shut up, the only person who
tells me to shut up is my leader.' He had his foot on the bar and said he had
daughters. Elton (Camará) was saying, 'I have 8 children, you take your foot
off the bar which has been here for 43 years.' This isn't Sporting, it's Juve
Leo. I don't know how he didn't get a few drops there. Or rather, it was
because I didn't allow it. He was there for 20 minutes, then some said 'We’re
more of a Sportinguista, no I'm more'... People wanted to know if there were
problems with the team, with Jorge [Jesus], what was going on there, but
people's biggest revolt was the (Facebook) post. There was a person there
representing nuclei, who said 'We have to go to the Academy' but it was
dismissed, it was immediately out of the question…”
Note - Even Mustafá is laying claim to how arrogant a man de
Carvalho is. This feeling that because he's the club president he can just
stroll in like he owns the place, putting his shoes on the bar where people put
their drinks. I'm not sure what's meant by drops despite trying to copy the
original word pingas into translate so if anyone knows don't be afraid to
share. Oh and fuck me, eight kids? Elton has been a busy little bastard hasn't
he? No wonder he cut off his electronic tag once he was on house arrest.
JP: “What was the relationship you had with Bruno de
Carvalho?”
NM: “A president-to-president relationship.”
JP: “Therefore it was from president of Sporting to
president of Juve Leo?”
NM: “I didn't vote for Bruno de Carvalho, I voted for
Couceiro [in the 2013 elections, the first won by Bruno de Carvalho]. I didn't
like him, he won the elections and he knew that I had been at the other
candidate's dinner…”
JP: "And was that a problem?"
NM: “I thought, now he's the president. And that's what he said: 'Whether you like me or don't like me, I'm the president of Sporting Clube de Portugal'. And I said: 'I am the president of Juve Leo'. Today I see that I was wrong. In my opinion, he had everything to be the best president of Sporting, he gave everything. I caught four presidents there. He managed to give Sporting a boost and I liked the way he worked. And I say this despite in the first month he charged half a million euros to Juve Leo, half a million for the fire at Luz [in the 2011 Dérbi, in the stand reserved for visiting fans]. There were more than four thousand Sporting fans, two thousand Juve Leo fans, none was identified but the invoice was for us…”
NM: “It was only when we had meetings. For example, when he
wanted to join all the fans in the upper South, two of which went from the
upper North to there.”
"It wouldn't be the first time that Juve Leo went to
the Academy but in my opinion there was no reason to go. We didn't lose to
Costa da Caparica or Arrentela, losing 2-0 to Atlético is nothing out of this
world. I also had no idea what was going on, on the internet. There were so
many problems, but the question of the team was not one of them.
He discusses the claims by William that de Carvalho wanted
him to vandalise the players’ cars.
"That's completely untrue, the way I heard it... That I
called him... It can't be worth anything sorry! Why was I going to call? I
don't know why he invented that and told it to someone else. He said he had
spoken to me on the 15th or 16th, after what happened at the Academy. Bruno de
Carvalho called me that day. It was on Friday, when I came from Madrid. I had
just arrived and he called me. It was something like 'Here's this son of a
bitch (William) saying I told you to do this and that, you're on loudspeaker’.
I even thought, 'It's all crazy.' I said no, that it was a lie. My wife was by
my side and everything. It was not common, it was not normal to have something
like this. I had a relationship with the players, I had lunch with the
players... I still don't know today what happened in April at the
club...", he explained.
Note those words that there was ‘no’ reason to go to
Alcochete. Confirms why Nuno Mendes isn't included because no sooner had it
been suggested in April then it was shut down. Also let's pick up on the fact
that Mustafá confirms he received a phone call saying "that the president
wanted to go to the meeting.” Remember what de Carvalho claimed? Yes, the
complete opposite. Wouldn't be a proper post without two people totally
contradicting each other would it now?
Moving back to the day of the invasion.
Judge Pires asks him: "But didn't you think it was
strange?"
"Of course, strange and serious. What happened in 24
hours... I woke up and have the world on top of me. After 24 hours I have the
world on top of me. I found out [about the attack] from my wife, who went to
pick up my daughter and woke me up. Cristina woke me up, called me. I saw
everything on television. One day I'll know what really happened. I still don't
know. If anyone is behind this, they have not yet been arrested. Half of those
defendants I don't know [pointing to the defendants' area]. There are things
that don't add up to me. Even today I still don’t know how Válter and Bocas got
involved.”
Note - That feels a rather telling remark. If anyone is
behind this they have not been arrested.
JP: "But someone who is described as a terrorist, a
peacemaker, was taking a nap and feels wronged...”
NM: "Very, very much, I am the most wronged of all!
Nothing is acceptable. They used my name, I have no doubt about it, for God's
sake. I don't know how Bocas and Válter got involved in this. That's what's on
my mind to this day. How they allowed that to happen and went along with
it."”
Mustafá talks about the use of his name in the three
WhatsApp groups. "Because of these messages it was 10 years hard work down
the drain. It was an abuse of power without my consent. I never expected that
from them. I have no explanation.”
JP: “Mr Mendes, the question of order: what is this about
casuals?”
NM: “I had several problems with casuals. Juve Leo does not
identify with these ideologies. Have you noticed here that..”
JP: “"Yes, I know, they wear black…”
"They have a way of thinking that solves things through
confrontations, a mentality of hooliganism as there is in Europe. It's their
mentality, they live in their world and I'm against it. I'm not like that, I
didn't come here to say that they wear black... I had several problems with
them, with violence and everything. It was something I had to sweep out of the
stands, that's why there's a song that talks about racism…”
JP: “Is Válter (Semedo) a friend of the casuals?”
"That's perhaps why Válter is here. He was my bet for
the future of Juve Leo, he bit off more than he could chew, he wanted to think
for himself. He reached a point where he wanted to follow his own path. He was
underemployed. Everyone chose their own path. That’s what happened and I've
been here for 9 months."
Nuno Mendes then spoke about the previous visits of members
of the members to the club's Academy in Alcochete. "Since I have been the
leader of the Juve Leo, every year we go there once. I spoke directly with
André Geraldes, phoned him and everything was immediately taken care of. With
Bruno Jacinto as Fan Liaison Officer, it was done more through Samico because
emails were necessary, authorisations, etc.. On the day we went to the Academy the
last time, everything was agreed with André Geraldes and when we arrived he said
that the president didn't authorise it. It wasn’t like the other times. I still
went to the security guard, said 'Oh young man, is there no authorisation
there?'. At this point Jorge Jesus appears, asking what we wanted. I replied
that it was necessary to talk to the players because everyone was going to war
and asked if we could come in to talk. He told me: 'Give me five minutes'. The
truth is that we spent two hours in the professional wing. No one came to pick
us up at the entrance, it was Ricardo Gonçalves [head of security] who went
halfway and said that only three or four could go. The others went to the
cafeteria, had a snack and paid. Flares? No, there was nothing, neither inside
nor outside.”
Mustafá explained that the staff of Juve Leo comprised about
30 members with varied functions. Mendes also explained the reasons that made
everything that happened so unexpected. "Never has the leadership of Juve
Leo given so much support to a team. We won the Taça da Liga... Then it started
in Madrid, we still have the game against FC Porto in which we went to the
final of the Taça de Portugal... Nothing could be predicted. No, no, I didn't
foresee any of that. Among the members there were internal problems, we can
talk about that, the rest never crossed my mind. I always had control of
everything. I had my finger on the pulse, that's why I was astonished. Nothing
predicted that it would happen. It was a fuse that started with what I saw on
Sunday. Did a spotter already foresee it? If so, why didn't he go there? To me
or with my knowledge they never transmitted anything.”
"I went freely for interrogation. This is a revolt, a
sadness…”
JP: "It wasn't my decision, I also take note... Do you
want to change anything about what you said there?
Mendes asks: “Is the trial almost over?”
JP: “On Friday the testimonies will end, all the evidence is
already done…”
JP: “Mr Mendes. I'm doing my job, as soon as possible…”
NM” They didn't even give me the ankle tag.”
Talking specifically about the invasion Mustafá says:
"I don't see myself in the accusation nor do I see myself in what
happened. Apart from the players, who have all suffered from this barbarity, I
am the one who is greatly affected. I had 3,000 members of Juve Leo, today I
have 700. It affected me and the members, the country fell on me. And I tell
you, I still find all this very strange, all very strange. It's a lack of
respect, for me, for the Sporting institution... It's all so bad..."
Mustafá added that it was decided that there would only be
one key to Casinha and that it was kept with Jojó: "The door even has a
grille. Benfica's supporters went there with a pipe to put gasoline through and
set it on fire. So only Jojó had keys, they were the only ones".
Miguel Coutinho, Sporting's lawyer asks: “Was Juve Leo,
Bruno de Carvalho's armed wing?”
Mendes also explained to Coutinho the episode of the flares
thrown at Rui Patrício's goal before the derby against Benfica, in the
penultimate round of the 2017/18 League. "Was I there? I was, I was even
carrying flares that were thrown onto the field, there must be images of that.
I was in the Casinha and Bruno Jacinto says that the president wants to meet
with all the groups, it wasn't just with the Leonina Youth. I wanted to pay a
big tribute to Marco Ficini [an Italian fan who had died the previous season].
It pains me so much to say that against our biggest rival Benfica, he was going
to say half an hour before to tell him to hit Rui Patrício, as I saw in the
accusation..."
JP: "Did you think that just one or two flares would be
thrown?"
NM: "Yes. Never that many. And it had consequences, it
led to another internal war within the fans. So much so that at Bessa the same
thing had happened, in Rui Patrício's goal. I am one of the people who
condemned this the most because the fines were 16 thousand euros in that game.”
Mustafá cries when talking about the "injustice of
preventive detention" that was applied to him.
"I was always waiting for the prosecutor to call me.
The Public Prosecutor's Office never wanted to listen to me. When they went to
search my house, they took dogs, set up the apparatus... I don't even know if
they will let me go live there again... And I'm sorry, I have to say this:
around noon, Cristina comes up to me at home and says 'Have you seen the TV?
You're going to jail!'. I spent seven months in presentations every day. This
is very serious. I spoke to my lawyer Rocha Quintal and he says 'Come to me and
let's go to the police station'. I had CMTV already at my door and the police
putting on their hats to come in. There was an officer that told me 'Musta,
they were the orders we had.' My daughter also went 15 days without going to
school, they said that her father is a drug dealer. The kids are not to blame.
The parents are to blame. This is not justice. I’m betrayed, disillusioned.
I've already made my mistakes, I've taken my guilt, if the appeal of the other
process doesn't work, I'll go to jail but not for drug trafficking. I feel
betrayed, disappointed, that's why I say that one day I'll understand what
happened, because it ruined ten years of work. The president fell, this one
entered. My way of seeing this, with all the months thinking, reflecting...
There is one thing here: the only way to get Bruno de Carvalho out of Sporting
was to associate him with this. I had to say this.”
"I want to say that with all due respect I hope that
the Public Prosecutor's Office sees the mistake it made and that it still has
time that it can release me because it has not yet shown any facts.”
Rocha Quintal, Mustafá's lawyer, again asked for the reduction of the coercive measure, to a non-preventive measure of freedom.
After that I guess firstly from me, my apologies that this
didn't sit in the first series. It's quite telling testimony especially when
sat with his discussion on how the tickets were given to the Juve Leo and in
truth this series is about trying to tell you all the finer details which don't
always seem to matter. Newspapers are the same the world over. They can damage
someone's reputation, apologise for it and move on but once the damage is done
it's always hard to remove the stains. No amount of money or compensation would
ever make up for it. Here's a man who has been poorly portrayed by the media as
one type of man, whereas in truth he appears to be an incredibly hard working,
thoughtful and resourceful man who clearly loves both his family and his
football team. Not once does he strike me as someone who abused his power. He's
clearly got a big heart. He doesn't understand why he's the only one stopped
from being with his family everyday.
Despite having nothing to do with what happened he condemns
the attacks unlike Bruno de Carvalho. He speaks of it being a sadness. When
Judge Pires says it's a shame he wasn't there that's a pretty damning statement
against the prosecution and the GNR isn't it? This is one of three men they
claim who masterminded the attack and here's the presiding judge going it's
a shame you weren't there. That won't have ever made it has a front page
newspaper headline will it?
Just because the man makes a living from his passion which
happens to be a football team doesn't give people the right to judge him for
something they've no evidence that he actually did. He admits he's no angel.
But like many of us we portray ourselves in a certain way to keep the world at
a distance from the people we really are. I know all about that. I've been in
exactly the same position all my life. You could ask a 100 people who know me
about who I am and get 100 different answers back. Mustafá aka Terror is a
character. Nuno Mendes is the man, the family man, the one who sends both his
kids to private schools and worries about the impact the trial and his
incarceration has had on them. He doesn't put the boot into other people,
admits there are times he's been wrong, that he's not angel and so forth. When
you read his testimony he comes out with a huge lot of credit, well from me
anyways. Sadly back then the Portuguese media would have been robbing from that
bank.
Look I am aware of some of the other things he's been
accused of. I am not naive. I'm specifically talking about the context of him
being taken away from his family when everyone else didn't have to suffer the
same consequences. It's a fucking travesty. No evidence of the drugs found
having been his, no evidence of any involvement in Alcochete let alone being
the mastermind. Neither is he afraid to cry. Clearly it's too much for him. You
can put a brave face on things, front them out for so long but he just wants to
go home to his family. The lawyers laughing really fucked me off I must say.
I've spent my life masking my intelligence and my friend who
introduced me to Sporting recently made a point of telling me off for it. I'm
sure I'm still doing it here in every post. For every clever point I'll
apologise somewhere else and go I'm an idiot. Sometimes to be fair I am. I'm
well aware I've led you down some dead ends, done some u turns like the Labour
government. But I don't mind showing my working out. It shows you a manner in
which not many people are willing to present themselves. I like to react to it
as if it's happening in real time. I want you to imagine we're all in there
together. We're putting theories together and then like in a TV show we either
hit the plot or we missed the twist altogether. I've assumed things. I've left
them in as a reminder to both myself and to you all how it's dangerous to do
exactly that.
The first post in series one I laid my cards on the table.
Because I couldn't criticise Bruno de Carvalho to the extent I would without
admitting my own failings as a man. But at no stage did I try paint myself in
any other light. Because like Mustafá my name was a character and if you chose
to believe that was the real me back then, then great, more fool you. I can't
deal with people being kind. I work best pushed into a corner. I feel oddly I
probably share a lot of traits with both men but on very different levels
indeed. We are all human. We all err. Yet it feels important that the man
actually most wronged is given his flowers and I hope my words here do the man
some level of justice that he deserves.
Anyways, that was a long one wasn't it? It wasn't that long when I wrote it the first time. Must have been the world's way of telling me to dig deeper and tell his story in a more meaningful and telling way. So that's Mustafá done. Imprisoned because one person says he was going to attend Alcochete in the WhatsApp group and held up as the mastermind for something he knew nothing about, then held on remand for the drugs that the GNR didn't even lift a finger to try prove were his. Quite frightening isn't it when you think about it? There's one very telling line from that testimony. Join us next time as we continue our search to get to the actual truth of what happened at Alcochete.
