José Macário Correia was sentenced this afternoon to 4 years and six months, with suspended sentence for an equal period, by the Court of Faro, who gave as proven four crimes of “prevarication of the holder of political office” and absolved him of one.
The crimes that the Court of Faro as proven, they refer to the authorization for the construction of three houses and a swimming pool, in an area of the National Ecological Reserve (REN), in the municipality of Tavira, when Macário Correia was the mayor of the local council, in 2007. A fifth crime, concerning the construction of another swimming pool has not been proven.
At the end of the sentence reading session, the former PSD mayor did not agree with the decision, which he will "obviously appeal". Speaking to journalists, Macário Correia once again defended that he had not committed any crime. “What is ridiculous is that, eight years later, I'm here without any bricks having been declared illegal construction,” he said.
«As you have seen, five situations were at stake here: two swimming pools and three houses. The three houses do not exist, they are processes that have expired. I've never issued a building permit, it's just architecture projects, in an intermediate stage. I didn't even pass any of the projects in specialty. It doesn't exist!”, he claimed.
An argument that did not work with the judge who judged this case, who considered, in the presentation of the facts considered by the court, that "the fact that there is no construction does not preclude a crime having occurred", given the approval of projects. Despite admitting that these decisions were not taken "for their own benefit", the magistrate stressed that they conferred "an advantage" on those who presented the projects.
Macário Correia spoke, for his part, of "somehow strange operating mechanisms" of justice, since in some cases "they are based on purely personal judgments and in which the valuation of facts, documents and the law depends very much on opinion of those who are enjoying them».
“The two pools are similar situations, but one says it's okay, the other already says it's not okay. And both are legalized by the Chamber of Tavira and the Regional Coordination and Development Commission. It is ridiculous that I am being condemned for situations that are considered legal», he said.
At issue, explained the judge, is the interpretation made by the former president of the Tavira Chamber of the General Regime of the National Ecological Reserve. The argument presented by Macário Correia, who saw, in some cases, the law changing, meeting his decisions, did not work, since, in the view of the court, what matters is the law that was in force at the time in that the approval took place.
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