The man accused of firing shotgun blasts at firefighters who responded to a fire at a locksmith’s shop in Vale de Madeiros, in the municipality of Nelas, was sentenced today to 15 years in prison.
José Guerra, 64, a taxi driver, was accused of 12 crimes, including four counts of aggravated aggravated homicide in the attempted form, a case that culminated today with the reading of the judgment, sentencing him to 15 years in prison.
The list also included crimes of arson, explosions and other particularly dangerous conduct, possession of a prohibited weapon, aggravated resistance and coercion of an official and aggravated coercion.
In reading out the judgment, the judge said that, “all in all, the commission of all the crimes would mean more than 25 years, which exceeds the maximum sentence allowed by law”, and therefore the 15 years was the result of “an assessment of each of the crimes and their consequences”.
In this regard, the panel decided on “four years in prison for two counts of prohibited weapons, five years for arson, expulsions and other dangerous conduct” and a total of more than 25 years for four counts of aggravated aggravated homicide in the attempted form.
In other words, eight years for shooting the commander, who “was between life and death”, and six years and three months and five years and one month for the other two firefighters, plus five years for shooting the GNR soldier because the bodily injuries were “less serious”.
For the crime of aggravated simple homicide, in its attempted form, the defendant was charged with the crime of bodily harm, since the victim was “in a supposedly safe place, where one of the victims had taken refuge” and was therefore sentenced to one year in prison, the judge said.
The decision also handed down three years in prison for the crime of aggravated coercion to the enforcement agent, since “he was threatened with shots fired into the air in order to intimidate” and, as an accessory sentence, he is banned from using and carrying weapons for 10 years.
On the afternoon of February 16, 2022, the defendant shot at volunteer firefighters from Canas de Senhorim who were fighting a fire in a garage and locksmith’s shop in Vale de Madeiros, in the parish of Canas de Senhorim, municipality of Nelas, district of Viseu, a fact presented by the prosecution and generally proven.
One firefighter was shot in the leg, another in the abdomen and a third in the forearm. A GNR soldier who was manning a security cordon at the scene was also shot in the thigh and a woman was wounded in the face.
The defendant was in pre-trial detention, the maximum term of which was due to expire on Friday, and in the closing arguments in June, the prosecution asked for between 16 and 18 years in prison, while the defense lawyer asked for the defendant not to be considered to have intended to kill.
The case had “numerous actors (several dozen), serious crimes under consideration (several attempted murders, arson, explosion, possession of a prohibited weapon, etc.), numerous offenders and highly complex civil compensation claims”.
The court considered that it was generally proven that the defendant set the fire with “the aim of destroying the property”, but understood that “he had no intention of killing but rather of preventing them from trying to destroy the property, because if he had intended to kill he would have had the opportunity when the victims were lying motionless on the ground and he didn’t do it”.
The Viseu court also ruled that the four citizens shot are entitled to compensation for material and non-material damage and, in the case of one firefighter, for biological damage, totaling more than 100 thousand euros.
