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António Joaquim Benedito, a trainee policeman, was also sentenced to pay 350,000 meticais (around US$5,880.00) compensation to the victim’s heirs.
Twenty years in prison is the sentence that Judge Laurindo Mahoche of the 6th section of the Judicial Court of Sofala gave police trainee, António Joaquim Benedito, the sole defendant in the case of the deadly shooting of “tchopela” taxi driver, Cristóvão Inoque, on February 7, 2016, outside the ‘barracas’ [tuck shops, usually inside containers] of Matacuane’s ‘corredor’, in the city of Beira.
Delivering the sentence on Monday, the magistrate said that the defendant was the perpetrator of the crime of voluntary homicide, provided for in article 155 of the penal code, whose sentence ranges from 16 to 20 years of prison.
Mahoche said that by firing on 32-year-old Cristóvão Inoque, António Benedito acted in a deliberate and conscious manner, since he knew perfectly well the dangerousness of his work tool on the fateful day.
For the judge, the maximum sentence of twenty years was justified by aggravating factors: António Benedito already had criminal antecedents, of qualified voluntary corporal offences. Moreover, he expressed a lack of regret and physically assaulted, in full court, a witness of the case and one of his police colleagues.
Regarding the defendant’s violence, when he was about to read the sentence, Laurindo Mahoche ordered the defendant to move, leading Benedito to leave the seat located in front of the podium, for a different seat , fearing that after the conviction the trainee would become outraged and break the courtroom tables.
The attitude of the magistrate was due to the fact that on one of the days of trial, on the 18th of this month, Benedito assaulted the Elísio Canembeira, a police colleague. At the time of the events that culminated with the referred sentence, both were serving at the Matacuane 3rd Police Station.
On that day, Benedito punched Elísio Canembeira twice in the courtroom, before the eyes of the body of judges led by Laurindo Mahoche. The worst was avoided by the prompt intervention of the prison guards who accompanied him.
The body of judges headed by Mahoche, concluded that in the above mentioned antecedents, the sentenced has revealed a tendency of aggressiveness.
At the time, Mahoche said: “May this sentence be a lesson for the defendant and that the time he will remain in seclusion, may be of reflection of what he did.”
In addition to the sentence of twenty years, António Benedito was also ordered to pay 350,000 meticais to the victim’s heirs.
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