Excerpt of Interview with Forensic Psychologist Paulo Sargento

pm Thu 27 Nov - 11:22

uarte Levy interviews Paulo Sargento – Recorded in Lisbon, 18th October 2008

Duarte Levy: What credibility do Leonor Cipriano’s statements regarding the aggressions, to which she pretends to be a victim, have?

Paulo Sargento: Well, the story of Leonor Cipriano as well as that of her brother, it’s a complex one, because, precisely from what we know, even in terms of tests, tests that were performed at different times, on the brother and on Leonor, is that their credibility is diminished. Diminished in the sense that both are diagnosed as having anti-social disorders with a high degree of psychopathy.

Generally, this type of person has in reality a compulsion to lie, in circumstances where the lie serves their goals, serves the self.

That is, it is not an urge to reduce the anxiety but to achieve an objective. And in those circumstances it is always of much reduced credibility.

When we talk about a person, who has a high degree of psychopathy, and confirming this idea… Actually her, I’m talking about her since she has been publicly confirmed in reports from the Institute of Social Reinsertion in different circumstances and also, in a report from the Minors Protection Commission from where this diagnosis is put forward. So, this type of person with this type of personality disorder, in reality they have little credibility in the sense that they lie to a great extent to achieve their goals.

That prosaically means that from the point of view of the attribution of their moral judgements, these people do not see means to achieve ends. And when in sight is their own… Let’s put this between brackets ‘to save their skins’, with certainty they can lie.

In these circumstances their testimonies will have to be properly evaluated by technicians, so that we may have the full scope of the veracity, not of the veracity but of the credibility of their statements.

Duarte Levy: Regarding Leonor and her brother, which one of them is the dominating figure? If in fact that happens.

Paulo Sargento: We don’t have data… From what we have in a public point of view, there isn’t enough data to know that, but there is a very curious factor, which is the one where the brother insistently says that ‘if my sister speaks I will also speak’. This is a public recognition of a kind of subjugation. And the whole of the protagonism of the case relative to Leonor Cipriano, also gives us a sense of matriarchality – that is of protagonism in the entire event of the crime, or not.

But the first question to emphasise, and it is one that is easy to highlight in any of the interviews given, is that when the circle starts to close in, when they are arrested, he says this one or two times: ‘If my sister speaks I will speak - I will only speak after she speaks’ – which gives her the protagonism and answering the question, she probably is a little bit more of a commander than him.

Exclusive interview by Duarte Levy. Image by Joana Morais. All Rights Reserved.

By Joana Morais