The Public Prosecutor’s Office has filed charges seeking the application of a security measure for a dangerous offender deemed not criminally responsible against the 32-year-old man suspected of killing his mother in March this year at the home they shared in Água de Pena, in the municipality of Machico.
According to a statement published on the Madeira Public Prosecutor’s Office website, the charges were filed by the Santa Cruz Public Prosecutor’s Office on the 4th of July.
The investigation alleges that the defendant killed his mother by repeatedly striking her on the head and face with a 12-kilogram iron dumbbell, causing fatal injuries.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office states that the defendant suffers from a serious mental disorder and that, at the time of the alleged offence, his cognitive abilities and capacity for critical judgement were significantly impaired. It adds that this condition was aggravated by the consumption of psychoactive substances, leaving him unable to understand the unlawfulness of his actions.
The statement also notes that when officers from the Public Security Police (PSP) attempted to detain him, the suspect threw himself from a height of more than six metres. As a result of the injuries he sustained, he could not immediately be brought before a judge for his initial judicial hearing to determine coercive measures.
The defendant remains in pre-trial detention and is being held in a psychiatric prison unit while awaiting trial.
Should the court conclude that he is neither criminally responsible nor poses a continuing danger to the public, the Public Prosecutor’s Office is requesting that he be committed to compulsory psychiatric treatment under the provisions of the Portuguese Penal Code.
The investigation was led by the Santa Cruz branch of the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP) of Madeira. The criminal investigation was carried out by the Judiciary Police, with the assistance of the PSP and the National Republican Guard (GNR).
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