The Minister of Internal Administration defended this Saturday (7) that the “overwhelming majority of PSP professionals serve Portugal with a high sense of mission”, after seven agents were placed in preventive detention for crimes such as torture and rape.
In a message published on the Instagram social network page of the Ministry of Internal Administration (MAI), Minister Luís Neves begins by saying that “it is important to defend citizens’ trust in institutions”, highlighting that police officers are not all the same.
“The overwhelming majority of PSP professionals serve Portugal with a high sense of mission, courage and respect for democratic legality. There are around 200 thousand who work every day for the safety of us all”, reads the message.
The minister’s message comes after it was revealed, this Saturday, that the seven PSP agents detained on Wednesday will await trial in pre-trial detention for the crimes of serious torture, completed and attempted rape, abuse of power, possession of a prohibited weapon, serious and qualified offenses to physical integrity.
In a joint statement, the Public Ministry (MP) and the PSP announced that the application of the most serious coercive measure by the Criminal Investigating Judge (JIC) is based “on the danger of continuation of criminal activity, serious disturbance of public peace and order and danger of conservation and acquisition of evidence and in accordance with what is promoted by the Public Ministry”.
In the note, Luís Neves also highlights that “the presumption of innocence applies to all citizens”, but says he also understands that this process shows how “State institutions are functioning”, since “the complaint came from the PSP itself”.
The minister also guarantees that “any suspicions of illegal behavior by security force agents will be investigated with complete rigor”.
On Wednesday, authorities detained seven PSP agents following the investigation into crimes of serious torture, rape, assault and abuse of power at Esquadra do Rato, in Lisbon.
The seven PSP agents join two other police officers who are in preventive custody after being arrested in July, in an investigation reported by the Civil Police.
In January, the two agents were accused of crimes of torture, abuse of power, rape, attacks on physical integrity, targeting mainly drug addicts, homeless people and foreigners.
The indictment states that the two agents attacked people they had arrested with “punches, slaps and blows to the head, and even filmed and photographed some of these situations and the respective victims”.
One of the reported cases is that of a Moroccan citizen who was allegedly sodomized with a baton by one of the accused and beaten and then taken away in the patrol car and abandoned on the street.
Many of the abuses were filmed and shared in WhatsApp groups with dozens of other agents.
Last week, the inspector general revealed that three disciplinary proceedings are taking place at the General Inspectorate of Internal Administration (IGAI) regarding this case, in addition to investigating the police officers who watched the videos shared by the agents about the alleged cases of torture and rape at the Rato police station, having opened an investigation process in collaboration with the PSP.
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