Google translated from Portuguese
37 members of the motorcycle group Hell’s Angels who were under house arrest were released.
The Loures Court decided to release 37 members of Hell’s Angels bikers who remained under house arrest. The trial, with 88 defendants, is still ongoing. At issue, Jornal de Notícias (JN) found out, is the fact that it is not possible for the trial to end before the legal maximum period for the defendants to be deprived of liberty without being sentenced in the first instance has been reached. Almost all defendants will thus await the remainder of the trial in freedom.
The 88 bikers are responsible, among other crimes, for criminal association and attempted murder, allegedly committed as part of a war between biker gangs for control of the criminal underworld. The trial began on September 28, 2021, more than three years after, in July 2018, the PJ launched an operation that culminated in the arrest of 56 people. A year later, 89 elements of the Hell’s Angels were charged with hundreds of crimes. Most demanded the opening of the investigation to try to avoid going to trial, but in October 2020, Judge Carlos Alexandre, of the Central Criminal Investigation Court, confirmed that 88 of the 89 defendants would actually sit in the dock. The magistrate decided, at the time, to subject 42 of the defendants to house arrest, including the 37 who, at the end of 2019, he had released, already for excessive preventive detention given the stage in which the case was. The rest remained free. Of the 42, two failed to comply with the determination, as they lived abroad; a third party was later detained and, therefore, the period has not expired; and the fourth will remain confined to the house, as part of another process. The remaining 37 are now, by decision of the trial court, free, subject to a term of identity and residence and obliged to report every Saturday at the police station in their area of residence. The revocation of this coercive measure does not prevent it from being reassessed by the Court of Loures when the judgment is read, which should only take place in several months.
