The trial of the two police officers from the Rato police station, in Lisbon, accused of torture and rape crimes will take place behind closed doors, as confirmed by the lawyer of one of the officers. The start of the trial was scheduled for 09:30 at the Lisbon court.
According to the Public Prosecutor's indictment, between July 2024 and March 2025, the two police officers allegedly assaulted with punches, slaps, and blows with gun butts to the head people they had detained, having also filmed and photographed some of these situations. In some cases, they sodomized or attempted to sodomize with an object some of the detained men.
The main defendant, aged 22 and in preventive detention since July 2025, is accused of 29 crimes, including six of torture, five of rape, seven of abuse of power, three of qualified physical assault, among others. The other police officer, aged 26, is accused of seven crimes and is under house arrest.
The victims were mainly drug addicts, people who committed minor crimes, many of them foreigners in irregular situations in Portugal or homeless. Some of the images of the abuses were shared in WhatsApp groups with dozens of other PSP agents. The investigating judge considered that there is sufficient evidence for trial and a serious probability of conviction.
