Hundreds rally in Lisbon over suspended sentence for policeman who killed Odair Moniz

Hundreds of people marched through central Lisbon this evening to protest against the suspended sentence handed to a PSP police officer convicted of shooting dead Cape Verdean chef Odair Moniz.

The demonstration, organised by the Vida Justa movement under the slogan “No Justice, No Peace”, drew support from anti-racism groups including SOS Racismo and the Frente Anti-Racista.

Protesters gathered at Largo de São Domingos before marching through Lisbon’s downtown carrying banners reading “Justice for Odair Moniz”, “No Justice, No Peace” and “Black Lives Matter”.

Chants accusing the police of systemic violence, and linking it to Portugal’s colonial past, echoed through the city centre.

The protest follows the June 15 ruling by Sintra Court, which convicted PSP officer Bruno Pinto of the homicide of 43-year-old Odair Moniz – who was shot in the Cova da Moura neighbourhood of Amadora in October 2024 – handing him a suspended sentence, on the basis that he had shown ‘an excess of legitimate defence’.

Not only this, the court ruled that it is up to the PSP hierarchy whether Pinto remains in the police force (which he has always said he hopes he can) – and the PSP national director has already indicated that this could well end up happening.

Flávio Almada, a leading activist with Vida Justa, believes the judgment “betrayed the memory of Odair Moniz”, arguing that the case reflects wider patterns in the treatment of victims of police violence.

“The court says an unarmed person was shot dead in legitimate self-defence,” Almada told reporters, adding that the demonstration today was also intended to draw attention to other deaths involving police officers.

Among those attending was Berenice, a 23-year-old Cape Verdean woman, who said the ruling left her questioning whether minority communities receive equal treatment under the law.

Another, Francisco, 40, described the sentence as “a tremendous injustice” and said police officers should be held to the highest standards because they are entrusted with enforcing the law.

The verdict has triggered fierce public debate. While anti-racism campaigners have condemned it as evidence of impunity and structural racism, police representatives have defended it – stressing officers often operate under intense pressure, and that the court clearly took all this into account.

The case remains one of the most contentious police accountability disputes in Portugal in recent years, with ‘experts’ and leader writers concluding that the Sintra court decision was, in final analysis, shameful.

In a hard-hitting editorial, entitled ‘Guilty of Hypocrisy’, Expresso director João Vieira Pereira said everything that needs to be said: “This was a Solomonic sentence, trying to please everyone, by saying that there was a homicide, but that someone was condemned, and, at the same time, pleasing the police in an effort to protect an institution that, in this case, has no possible defence. We need to remember that to protect a homicide, the entire police structure forged evidence and testimony to try and blame someone who could no longer defend himself. The adjective ‘shameful’ must be used in the face of the PSP chain of command which tried to cover up its mistakes, disrespecting the life of a human being.

“Even today, two years on, there is no conclusion by IGAI (the general inspectorate of internal administration) on this case. The policy is one of trying to pretend that everything is fine in the PSP, when in the face of things like there is obviously a great deal to clean-up. That police force should be reviewed from top to bottom, particularly the chains of command that were complicit in the case of Odair (Moniz).”

Source material: LUSA/ Expresso/ CNN Portugal