Year: 2017

GNR made its biggest drug seizure in Madeira on Thursday 20^th July, at Ribeira Brava, with 1050 metres of cannabis plants and more than seven kilograms of the drug.

The (stems of the plant branches) were already dry and in the cutting stage, GNR said in a statement.

According to the GNR, “the seizure took place in the context of an investigation for drug trafficking. Two searches were carried out, a domiciliary and a non-domiciliary one, and a man was made a formal suspect and subject to expiration of identity and residence.”

The action was supported by the dog unit.

“This apprehension of cannabis constitutes the largest ever carried out by the GNR in the Autonomous Region of Madeira,” said the

The US military at the Lajes base in the Azores, which was charged with attempted murder, rape, physical assault and kidnapping, was acquitted of all crimes on Friday.

“Since it has not been proven that he committed the crimes, he will be acquitted,” the judge said at the Angra do Heroísmo court in Terceira Island, in a reading of the ruling.

According to the judge, “the court failed to prove all the facts,” although the expert opinion confirmed some of the facts described by the accused.

The judicial magistrate also said that some “incongruities” were detected in the version of the alleged victim, who was an assistant in the process, but it was not possible to prove the accusations in any of the crimes.

The woman accused the US military, who was finishing a service commission at the Lajes base, of raping her and assaulting her, in an isolated place, after having he accepted her as a hitchhiker in his vehicle at dawn of 01 November 2016, in Praia da Vitória.

According to the communiqué issued by the Judiciary Police at the time, she said that the defendant later took her to another place near the coast, where she was raped, beaten with a  weapon and tried to kill by drowning.

The Coordination of the Public Ministry of the Region of the Azores informed that the alleged victim, an employee at the base of Lajes and who knew the defendant, was able to free herself from him and fled to the sea, swimming until she did not see him She returned to shore and after sometime was able to get help from a passer-by who took her to hospital.

At the trial, the accused stated that the sexual relations were consented and it was the alleged victim who tried to attack him, which led him to immobilize her and expel her from his vehicle.

The defendant was in custody until the last session of the trial, on the 12th, having been placed under house arrest and now released.

The number of firefighters in the country has been declining every year, decreasing to 29,000 in 2015 (last year with data unavailable), when ten years earlier there were almost 42,000, according to the National Statistics Institute (INE).

According to an article in the Diarios de Noticais (DN),  Volunteers enter, but also many leave and there is a great turnover, stated the associations that represent them. This is despite the increase of salaried employees in humanitarian corporations, with professionals estimated to make up a third of their total.

According to the Volunteer Firefighters of Vila do Conde, which has 42 employees in a total of 100 firefighters. “It is not possible to depend on volunteer help: there are fewer and fewer volunteers” he explains. Rui Silva has two jobs – clerk and teacher – which means that he is often not available for volunteering. When he had an accident as a firefighter he lived months of the minimum wage, which is generally guaranteed by insurance.  He advocates creating real incentives and not “alms” to get people to want to be firefighters (see box).

Also the National Association of Professional Firefighters (ANBP) understands that the accounts are poorly made. In fact, according to their estimates, there are 15,000 professional firefighters, almost double those indicated by the ANPC, 12,000 of whom work in the fire and municipal and professional organizations.

Fernando Curto, the chairman of the board of directors, argues that, first, “the number of professionals and volunteers should be clarified” before taking any action. He argues: “There is a false question when it comes to professional firefighters and volunteer firefighters. The Secretary of State for Home Affairs says it will not professionalize firefighters,” we do not want them to be professionalized, we want clarification. Most of the wage earners are in voluntary associations. All have professional firefighters, which are the first intervention teams. It is in these corporations that should increase the professionals and only thus they can have more human means “.

The leaders of the Portuguese Firemen’s League recognize this reality. Marta Soares, the president of the Portuguese Firemen’s League, says that humanitarian associations have salaried employees to guarantee their workforce. “Ten years ago, the number of firefighters stabilized at 30,000, they have less availability. Volunteer associations have about 8% professionals and they guarantee the functioning of the civil protection structure.” Marta Soares refers to the ANPC census. The data sent by the structure to DN indicate an increase in the number of professionals since 2012 and that will represent more than 27% of the workforce, without the Azores and Madeira. Only the INE data gives the evolution of the sector, in addition to crossing ANPC statistics with those of corporate commanders.

 

Since the beginning of the year, 14 incidents involving drones have been reported by civil aviation

The government is to “advance by the end of this month” the submission of regulations for mandatory registration of drones over 250 grams, the Minister of Planning and Infrastructures, said today 14^th July, admitting that “there is much to do.”

“The drones is a subject that worries me a lot,” said Minister Pedro Marques, during a parliamentary hearing at the Committee on Economy, Innovation and Public Works.

In response to questions from CDS-PP Hélder Amaral on what is being done in the framework of drone regulation, the official said he would move forward with the registration of drones, advocating that this will be “an important control instrument”.

Pedro Marques recalled that the future European regulation of unmanned aerial vehicles “should only enter into force in 2018”, arguing that the European Commission should work to anticipate the timetable.

At the end of June, the president of the National Civil Aviation Authority (ANAC), Luís Ribeiro, announced in parliament the intention to propose to the Government, by the end of July, a legislative project on the drones that makes it mandatory to register the equipment and the prohibition of use by children under 16 years.

At the end of a hearing at the Committee on Economy, Innovation and Public Works, Luís Ribeiro explained that “additional measures must be taken” due to the increase in occurrences with drones (unmanned aircraft).

Six months after the entry into force of the current regulation, the aviation regulator argued for a reinforcement of the rules “by legislative means”.

In addition to the mandatory registration of ‘drones’ exceeding 250 grams, the Government defends the obligation of liability insurance.

“We will not solve all the challenges,” said Pedro Marques, indicating that Portugal is not one of the European countries with the highest number of occurrences with unmanned aerial vehicles.

The United Kingdom and France lead the list of European countries with more occurrences with ‘drones’, reason why Portugal will follow the work of these two countries in terms of regulation.

For the minister, drone regulation has gained more discussion with recent news of aircraft occurrences, but the main risks are the invasion of the privacy of populations and the fall of these unmanned aircraft.

Pedro Marques said that technologies for the control of situations with drones are being tested, work being done between the regulator (ANAC), airport managers (ANA) and air traffic managers (NAV).

“We believe it will be feasible to install radars for the remote detection of these ‘drones,” he said, pointing out that there must be adequate authority forces to find the drone operators detected.

On 11^th July 2017 the Cascais Court sentenced to four and a half years in prison an inspector of the Judiciary Police for having diverted 40,000 euros during searches to a residence in Cascais.

Emanuel Briosa was accused by the Public Ministry (MP) of diverting 200,000 euros, in the course of the search for a residence in Cascais (Lisbon district), under the “Rota do Atlântico” process, in which businessman José Veiga is one of the defendants .

The panel of judges found that the accused diverted “at least 200 euro banknotes of 200 euros” (40,000 euros).

Joint action by the UK travel trade and police, courts and hoteliers in Spain has led to a major a breakthrough in the fight against false sickness claims.

According to TUI UK and Ireland, a major crackdown has led to one law firm dropping more than 1,800 cases against the travel giant.

Managing director Nick Longman said the company met last week with Spanish police to discuss the unprecedented levels of illness claims.

“We fully support the steps they are taking to expose this kind of fraud and to investigate false or exaggerated cases,” he said.

“Through the work we are doing and the awareness we are raising of this type of activity, we’ve already seen one law firm drop more than 1800 cases against us. We remain committed to doing all that we can to put a stop to this activity and therefore protect honest holidaymakers.”

TUI said police were given details of hundreds of cases of suspected fraud and have now delivered the results of their investigation to the Courts of Palma.

“Customers who submitted false or exaggerated claims for food poisoning against hoteliers in Mallorca during the last year can expect criminal action to be taken,” it said.

But the problem isn’t just confined to Spain, according to the Foreign Office.

In recent weeks, the FCO has issued warnings to British holidaymakers in Portugal, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece and Cyprus about the risks of making false claims.

The warnings come after a rise in claims, blamed on claims companies targeting popular resorts in these holiday destinations.

Jet2 Holidays has drafted in undercover detectives to sniff out representatives from claims firms who are reportedly hanging out in resorts trying to persuade holidaymakers to make claims and Thomas Cook said it was also taking action.

Last month ABTA launched a political and consumer campaign to persuade the Government to crack down on bogus holiday sickness claims.

Its ‘Stop Sickness Scams’ campaign also warns holidaymakers of the consequences of making a false claim, which could include a fine.

The GNR Territorial Command of Castelo Branco, through the Criminal Investigation Nucleus of Fundão, arrested on 4^th July, 13 men and two women between the ages of 20 and 35, for the crime of drug trafficking in Covilhã, Fundão, Cortes do Meio and Tortosendo.

As part of an investigation for drug trafficking, which has been taking place since the beginning of the year, 17 household searches and six non-domiciliary searches were carried out and seized:

• 40 doses of hashish; 16 doses of cocaine; two grams of cannabis leaves; a shotgun; 11 blank guns; a compressed air weapon; six cartridge; six vehicles; 2 200 euros in cash; 30 mobile phones; 11 computers; four tablets; various precision scales; various external disks, pen’s and memory cards; and various material destined to the cutting, packaging, sale and consumption of narcotic product.

The suspects were constituted defendants, subject to expiration of their identity and residency being, and presented at the Judicial Court of Fundão.

This operation counted on the collaboration of the military commanders of the Territorial Commands of Aveiro, Coimbra, Guarda, Leiria, Portalegre and Santarém.

The man suspected of causing the fire that killed three people in Funchal in August 2016 was sentenced to 14 years in prison on Thursday 6^th July 2017. He was sentenced after being found guilty of the crimes of (arson) aggravated forest fire and gross negligent homicide.

The Court proved the facts and considered that the defendant wilfully and freely set fire to the forest less than 100 meters of houses in the upper part of the parish of São Roque, in Funchal, in a situation of high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds, conscious of what he was doing.

The accused was sentenced to 12 years for the crime of causing the forest fire and three years for the crime of gross negligent homicide. He will serve a sentence of 14 years.

It was also understood that the accused did not act to cause the deaths, but his negligence leading to the deaths was considered by the court sufficient for gross negligence, which “covers the other deaths,” explained the judge.

The group of judges sent to the civil court the resolution of damages that exceed 100 thousand euros.

The man, who on August 10, 2016, in the first judicial interrogation, began by confessing to have set fire, claiming to be under the influence of alcohol.

The defendant is suspected of having set fire to a forest area that, due to weather conditions – high temperatures (37 degrees Celsius), dry weather and strong winds (70 degrees Celsius) on August 8 in the parish of São Roque near Funchal. Kilometers) – has spread to a large area of ​​the county.

The next day, fire struck areas in central Funchal and three women died in their homes.

This fire caused hundreds of displaced persons and material losses evaluated in 157 million euros by the Regional Government of Madeira.

The report by the Portuguese Institute of the Sea and Atmosphere (IPMA) on the Pedrógão Grande fire shows that there is only a 5% probability that the ignition was caused by thunderstorms, as indicated by the PJ.

The IPMA held a press conference on 4th July to release the already-known report, pointing out once again that there is a low probability of lightning strikes near the site and at the start of the Pedrógão Grande fire .

“The cloud-to-ground discharges that were detected near the site of the fire occurred at 17:37 hrs, 18:53 hrs and 20:54 hrs, whereas the reference time for the start of the fire was 14.43 hrs,” explained the coordinator of the study, Nuno Moreira.

Thus, the report suggests that there is a low, but non-zero probability of a cloud-soil discharge in the vicinity of the start of the fire, “added the IPMA technician.

Meteorologist Sandra Correia added that there is “a margin of error” and that “the network may not have caught a discharge”, but confirmed everything indicates “that, closer to the place, these discharges only occurred from mid-afternoon until at night”.

“We did not detect any discharge at the time of the fire,” she said.

Meteorologist Paulo Silva pointed out that “given the convective activity [atmospheric instability] near the area of ​​Escalos Fundeiros [village of Pedrógão Grande], it is possible to conclude, according to the radar, that the cloud at that precise moment had no maturity to produce cloud-soil discharge, but would have been later.”

In relation to a downburst (a high intensity wind and near the ground that, from a certain point, blows in a straight line in all directions), Nuno Moreira said that “it was possible to observe this phenomenon by radar in several regions of the upper Alentejo, but none were detected near the site of the fire.

The downburst, according to the IPMA, helps explain the aggressiveness of the fire that destroyed 26,000 hectares and several hundred homes as fire could increase it.

“It was identified a fire plume activation and this activation, the data suggests, may be due to ‘downburst’, which was not directly observed,” explained Nuno Moreira, noting that these phenomena of downward currents are rare.

On June 17, the meteorological stations also detected wind gusts of 80 kph in Proenca-a-nova.

The technicians of the IPMA also mentioned that, at around 19:25, was detected a first activation of the fire plume and that suddenly went for 20 kms.

In the document, sent to the Prime Minister, it is explained that the fire of Pedrógão “broke out and developed in a meteorological frame characterized by a situation of extreme heat and dryness, atmospheric instability with occurrence of thunderstorms, without precipitation in the region and intense bursts of wind”.

This fire, along with another that broke out the same day in Góis, which spread to Arganil and Pampilhosa, will have affected approximately 500 dwellings, 169 of first habitation, 205 of second and 117 empty properties.

Almost 50 companies were also affected, as were the jobs of 372 people. Source Diario de Noticais

The Aveiro court today sentenced a 39-year-old man who started nine forest fires between August and November 2016 in Agueda, to four years and nine months in prison, with suspended sentence.

The accused, who was under house arrest, with electronic surveillance, was released from court after reading the judgment.

Earlier, the presiding judge explained that the panel of judges decided to suspend the sentence, even though the “high” prevention needs of general order did not advise it.

The last fires and the panic and damage that this causes in the populations are still very present, but we decided to give you a vote of confidence, because you confessed the facts and because we have the expectation and the confidence that it does not repeat again, “said the magistrate.

The court also took into account the fact that the burned areas were small and there were no “significant losses”.

The man was convicted of seven forest fire crimes, two of them in attempted, and two fire crimes.

During the trial, the defendant showed regret and justified his behaviour, claiming that he “was out of control” due to the separation of his companion.

According to the indictment of the Public Ministry, the fires occurred in different places of the parish of Macinhata do Vouga, in the municipality of Águeda, where the defendant resides.

The MP states that at the beginning of August, in order to “cause commotion in the residents of that locality and in the localities nearby,” the defendant decided to start firing several fires on his neighbour’s land.

The defendant acted during the night, setting fire to dry pine cones and a lighter and, in some cases, watched others fight the fire, doing nothing to extinguish the flames, says the MP.

In most cases, the intervention of the population was enough to extinguish the fire, but in two situations the firemen had to be called to stop the spread of the flames to forest zones and houses.