2.9 The Story of Alcochete: Shaken not stirred

Quick recap of the last post as always. Having been quietly confident I was leading you all on the right track, one comment from Nuno Mendes in part 7 had left me questioning everything I thought I knew. What if I'd been looking at this all the wrong way? The man had a lot of time to think sat on remand. In all honesty none of this was ever my plan. The first series was supposed to be about the rise and fall of Bruno de Carvalho and you can't do the fall part by just saying - on May the 15th, 2015 there was an attack on Alcochete. Having OCD meant my brain needed to complete the telling of the story because everything felt off. Cândida Vilar is a trained lawyer, the police are trained criminal investigators, they're all saying the same thing. This was a planned ‘attack.’ They've got access to all the evidence and the defendants so if anyone is going to know it'll be them right. Right?

Vanity project or insanity project? Now that's the question with Vilar isn't it?

So we went down one level from Mustafá and started with Válter, friend of William… and the casuals. He admits to doing some silly things behind Mustafá's back.

I can make you all a solemn promise that I am not deliberately trying to drag this entire thing out. I'm not getting paid to write it, I don't carry advertising, there's no button to click on to buy me a coffee. This genuinely started out as a single series which I thought would maybe at most ten parts. But if a jobs worth doing then it's worth doing properly and personally I think the prosecution and GNR did a fucking terrible job. 

Let's recap what seems to have been at least wrapped up in a nice bow. 

We know of 44 defendants brought to trial that only three were not convicted and those three were the ones accused of being the moral authors of the attack. Well the prosecution couldn't have gotten that one more wrong if they'd tried. We'd also wrapped up the accusations of ticket sales being used to fund a drug trafficking operation. In the last post we looked at Válter Semedo one of the right hand men of Nuno Mendes, leader of the Juve Leo. He was the one who created the WhatsApp group Academia Amanhã' which we'd concluded felt more like an itinerary than a plan of attack. In fact by the time Semedo had arrived having jogged from his car everything felt like it was pretty much over. In our giant boardgame version of Guess Who we'd also ruled him out. Which left us one avenue open that I could see. Driven by Nuno Mendes' testimony when he points to the casuals and declares he doesn't know who any of them are, because this as we've long established wasn't something that was authorised by the Juve Leo, merely that some of those caught up on the day happened to be members. So the question left was a new one. A real interesting one to boot. What if there was no moral authorship of the attacks? What if all this time we've followed the lead of the prosecution and needed to find someone to ultimately pin the blame on? What if it was merely a planned trip that escalated into something it wasn't supposed to have been? Where would we start to figure the answer to that one out and is it possible to draw a definitive conclusion?

The answer most likely lies on the messages on the other two WhatsApp groups. We don't have those. Look, don't blame me I'm merely pointing out what a shit show car crash clusterfuck of a prosecution this case was. 

Now full admission the longest gap between me writing usually only occurs because of work, sleep or refuelling. Today however I've had some really long pauses. Like ridiculously long pauses. This whole second series has been like pealing layers away but not in a fun way like pass the parcel where I might have gotten a small box of Smarties. This is more like peeling an onion where now I could cry. This is pin the tail on the donkey blindfolded, this is show me where Galápagos is on a world map. 

Right let's shake the tree really fucking hard and see what falls out…

Tiago Silva better known as Bocas. The other right hand man of Nuno Mendes. Remember in his testimony he says he's no idea how either Válter or Bocas got mixed up in everything that happened. Well if Válter did the administration side, meet at Lidl, bring a scarf to cover your face and maybe pack some sandwiches in case you get hungry, did Bocas play a more active role? 

Well it turns out that according to Cândida Vilar the answer is yes. Not for the first time I'm thinking what the actual fuck? Because we know who she named as the three moral authors of the attack. She took a shine to Fernando Mendes a month after the attack. Seems that she also took a shine to Bocas at some stage in the proceedings to. According to Vilar, Bocas managed the WhatsApp groups in which the attack was planned and was the operational commander of the invasion.

I'm sorry, say that again. For a moment I thought you said that Bocas was the operational commander of the invasion…oh no wait…that's Ronsil, thats exactly what it says on the fucking tin.

Anything else? He was held up as an example to the other group members due to “his aggressive acts.” He was the one to confirm the time of training and plan the meeting places and the time of the invasion. Oh no, so sorry Válter you don't even get to take credit for that. All you get is the name of the group - Academy Tomorrow. 

Transpires that it's not just Fernando Mendes who's accused of having to have the police stop him at the airport from attacking Marcus Acuña and we can throw Bocas into the mix as well. That on top of being incensed by Battaglia. Two of his messages in the group are highlighted but I'm fearful that Google translate is about to fuck me over again. So I take them to mean that when they arrive that they ensure they corner everyone and that everyone is to give their maximum effort. Hardly the most incriminating statements admittedly but it's what I've got to work with. 

So let's go back to Nuno Mendes testimony. He's the one man who actually appears to have some sense of everything, this despite having nothing to do with it which seems pretty fucking ironic. He's left saying he doesn't know how both men end up getting involved in something like this and yet he still doesn't think that either one was the mastermind. Silva definitely sounds more prone to a potential violent outburst if the reports from Funchal Airport are to be believed. 

Let's go back to Cândida Vilar and a previous post where I asked was this a vanity project for her or an insanity project? Because she ultimately plumps for three names who were all acquitted. She also put Fernando Mendes and Tiago Silva in the frame for being masterminds. However she doesn't seem to follow through on either. Is that through lack of evidence or sheer bloody mindedness that she wants to pin it on Mustafá and the two Bruno's? The answer is I genuinely don't know. None of how she tried the case makes any real sense to me. I'm not sure it even made sense to her quite frankly and maybe the best part of eight years on she could tell you what she was actually thinking?

So can we find anything else out? 

Well actually quite a lot and as always with this series there's always another loose thread to pull at. 

If you've been following both series since the start, firstly well done and thank you and secondly you may remember in our post on the introduction to the claques a reference to the tragic death of Marco Ficini. The Italian who was a Fiorentina fan, a club who have connections with Sporting CP, was over to watch the Dérbi de Lisboa at the Estádio da Luz. The trial into his death which occurred in April of 2017 was postponed until January 15th of 2020. It had originally been scheduled to be heard starting on November 21st of 2018. It has then been postponed the first time until September the 11th of 2019. 

Ficini died after being run over whilst attempting to run away near the stadium following clashes that took place in the early hours of April the 22nd, 2017, hours before the Dérbi between Sporting and Benfica on matchday 30th at the Estádio José Alvalade. Yes, those of you who are eagle eyed will have spotted this is the same Dérbi held later in the evening where the flares are thrown into the goal area of Rui Patrício by members of the Juve Leo.

According to the prosecution's accusation, that morning a group of Benfica fans went to the vicinity of the Estádio José Alvalade and launched a red luminous rocket towards the south stand. (What the luminosity of the rocket has to do with anything I've no idea). Sporting fans who were at the José stadium distributing tickets and preparing the choreographies of the Juve Leo went to the Estádio da Luz in order to "fight back" for the launch of the rocket, taking metal bars with them.

During the clashes and chases that followed, Pina fatally ran over Ficini, "dragging the body for 15 meters" and immobilising the car only "after having completely passed over the victim's body.” The prosecution alleged that the defendant also left the scene "without providing any assistance".

According to a court order, the new postponement was due to the fact that a new case of special complexity was distributed to this panel of Judges, chaired by Helena Pinto, with 66 defendants, some of whom are in preventive detention, "which determines that such a process is considered urgent.”

On April the 16th of 2018, the Lisbon Court of Criminal Investigation had decided to put Luís Pina, the main defendant in the case on trial for the murder of Ficini and four other attempted murders, while the remaining defendants would be tried for the crimes of participation in a brawl, damage with violence and omission of assistance.

In addition to Pina, the criminal investigation Judge Isabel Sesifredo decided to bring to trial the remaining 21 defendants in the case: nine other Benfica fans with links to the No Name Boys and, more importantly … 12 Sporting fans from the Juve Leo in the exact terms of the accusation of the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP).

The instruction - an optional phase in which a judge decides whether the defendants will go to trial - was requested by ten of the defendants, including Pina, who in the request to open an investigation, maintained that he "never had the intention" of running over and "much less killing a human being.”

The criminal investigation judge then pronounced the 22 defendants - all free - in the exact terms of the accusation of the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP), having given "as fully reproduced" and proven the facts described.

Pina, who had been in pre-trial detention since April the 29th of 2018 was released on March 2nd, 2019 because no instructive decision was issued within a maximum period of ten months after the date on which that coercive measure was applied to him. 

Now one of the main issue's in attempting to have the case heard was of those 12 members of the aforementioned Juve Leo, three were already involved in a current ongoing trial. Sadly you don't get any points for guessing which one that was. The three men were Miguel Ferrão, Ricardo Neves and…Válter Semedo. So when Nuno Mendes says in his testimony that he doesn't know how Semedo got caught up with the casuals, maybe he's not really referring to what happened at Alcochete. When Semedo makes light of other extra curricular activities away from the Juve Leo and doing some silly things I'm relation to football without the knowledge of Nuno Mendes, then presumably this may well have been one of those points he was referencing. 

I think I wrote in the first series that everything totalled together seems so implausible that it could never be associated with the same club. In truth around that time it's seemingly never ending. There's always another part to the tale. We've not even touched on the flares at the Bessa home of Boavista. 

So maybe I went too early with Semedo. At the end of the day the fact remains he created the group that planned the trip / visit which ends up being the invasion / attack. 

If anyone knows which post I wrote the part about potentially investigating the Porto case into corruption and bribing of referees can they let me know so I can delete it please and we'll say no more about it?

So what else can we find out? 

Around half of the defendants are under the age of 30 and hail from Lisbon. Six of them appear on Juve Leo's official IPDJ listing. 

We now know that Semedo, Neves and Ferrão are defendants in two cases, both involving Sporting fans and both with serious consequences, albeit in the case of Alcochete thankfully no one lost their life and if we were to compare the two, note how retaliating against the Benfica fans they went armed with metal bars, whilst with the players the worst is some take their belts off. One is a highly premeditated potential act which could result in serious harm and injury, the other by comparison feels like an after thought. Because that's the crux of the matter isn't it? If you were planning to properly attack anyone physically with any intent to cause harm, then you carry weapons. You cannot bypass the consistency of the theme that they went there to voice their displeasure at recent performances, to encourage them before the Taça de Portugal Final (funny way of encouraging but there you go) and that a very large majority were coming away saying this wasn't the way it was supposed to happen. All very telling indeed. 

I think we're going to have to do some more digging. I mean to be fair I've already dug and it's two very long pieces of testimony as I try to tick off all the defendants testimony I can find. I've separated the next two posts into two distinct character traits. You'll have to wait until next time and see which trait comes first.