Google translated from Portuguese
Mário Machado, targeted in an attack by the biker group Hell´s Angels in 2018 for belonging to the rival group Los Bandidos, revealed today that three weeks before the incident he heard “a rumor that something was not right”.
Mário Machado spoke as an assistant (collaborator to the prosecution) in the trial in which 89 defendants linked to the Hell’s Angels group are responsible for crimes such as criminal association, attempted murder aggravated by the use of a weapon, offense to physical integrity, extortion, robbery, trafficking of drugs and possession of weapons and ammunition, after having invaded and attacked, in March 2018, elements of “Los Bandidos” who were having lunch in a restaurant in Prior Velho.
Mário Machado, also known for leading the nationalist movement New Social Order and who was the main target of the Hell’s Angels attack, narrowly escaped the onslaught of the biker group because he arrived late for lunch, at a time when the attacks they had already occurred and the police had been called to the scene.
Today, on trial, before the collective chaired by Sara Pina Cabral, Mário Machado began by revealing that about 20 years ago he was invited to join Hell’s Angels in Portugal, through a member of the “Hamburg chapter”, Germany.
Mário Machado admitted having belonged, for about a year, to the Bloody Devils group – considered the embryo of the Hell’s Angels in Portugal -, but that he decided to leave for ideological reasons, avoiding going into details because of people’s private lives.
Despite the judge’s insistence on knowing more details, Mário Machado said that it had to do with his nationalist convictions, but again without delving into the divergences that led him to leave the ‘biker’ group, clarifying that it was not mandatory to have a motorbike to join the organization.
In response to the panel of judges, he also clarified that in 2013, when he was detained, he was invited to form “Los Bandidos”, but he stressed that he had no idea what the purpose of the ‘biker’ group would be, beyond what he knew about the internet , and avoided providing the exact location of the group’s headquarters, saying only that it was in the Sintra area.
During the interrogation, the deponent stated that “neither far, not even close, can it be said that the Hell’s Angels have to do with the nationalist movement”, refuting any ideological connection and noting that there are “Jews and Asians” in that group ‘biker’ with international branches.
According to Mário Machado, in the ‘biker’ groups what exists is a “personal connection” and “not an institutional and ideological connection”, referring that in the Bloody Devils he found a member who had a hammer and sickle tattooed on his shoulder, which did not pleased.
At the end of the session, José Manuel Castro, Mário Machado’s lawyer, told journalists that the clarifications provided today by the assistant were “very relevant” on the facts under consideration at trial, namely on the organizational data of the Hell’s Angels.
The lawyer said there was “ample evidence” (documents and telephone tapping) in the process that will help the court to form its conviction about the crimes that occurred and anticipated that the trial would last for at least six months, with more than a hundred witnesses still to be heard.
According to the indictment, the members of Hell’s Angels devised a plan to annihilate the group “Los Bandidos” in March 2018, using physical force and various weapons to cause them serious injuries, “even to death if necessary”.
Most of the defendants announced at the first trial session, last September 28, that they did not intend to make a statement at the hearing.
Due to the high number of defendants and lawyers, the judgment of the Hell’s Angels case takes place at Espaço Multiusos, in Camarate, with the presence of elements from the special PSP unit, who today escorted the car that transported Mário for security reasons. Ax out of that space.
In the order that brought the defendants to trial, investigating judge Carlos Alexandre considered that, given the evidence analyzed, “this set of elements thus grouped is not a simple ‘biker’ recreational club, but a group of people who organize themselves (… ) in paramilitary molds or similar to the mode of action of a militia”.
The trial continues on the 25th, with the resumption of the questioning of Mário Machado, who will still have to answer questions from the defendants’ defense lawyers.
