Joana Case: Crime of Rape Ignored to Save Money

pm on Wed Jul 01, 2009 6:33 pm

Joana Case: Crime of Rape Ignored to Save Money

29th October 2008

Joana Cipriano was eight years old when she was last seen, on the 12th of September 2004, around 20h30. The little girl went on a errand on her mother's behalf to a nearby coffee in the Algarve village of Figueira, and never returned.

Leandro Silva, Joana's stepfather

Joana’s stepfather refused to make an analyses to the sperm found in the little girl’s panties to prove if there was or not a crime of rape. The PJ gave up making the exam in the US to save 10 thousand Euros.

After Joana Cipriano’s stepfather, Leandro Silva, refused to give a sample of his semen for the analysis, the National Institute of Forensic Medicine suggested to the Judiciary Police the making of a DNA test in the US.

However, the ‘indication was not followed’ by the Judiciary due to the values implicated, 10 thousand Euros, as advanced by Correio da Manhã today. The PJ explained to the newspaper that the archival was made ‘because even if it is proved that the sperm belongs to the suspect he can still allege that he cleaned his penis to the child’s panties’.

We recall that the police found in Leonor Cipriano’s daughter panties, semen. Only an analysis would shed light regarding the crime of rape of the Figueira’s child.

Joana’s mother was convicted to 16 years in jail for the crime of homicide of her daughter, jointly done with the brother, uncle of little girl who disappeared in September 2004 from the village of Figueira, in Portimão.

This week follows in court the trial of five elements of the Judiciary Police accused of acts of torture to Leonor Cipriano, in October 2004, which happened during the interrogatories to Joana’s mother with the objective of getting a confession.

in AEIOU Portuguese Portal

By Joana Morais