PSP officer Bruno Pinto gets suspended three-and-a-half-year sentence for killing Odair Moniz in Cova da Moura
The Sintra court found that Odair Moniz was unarmed when he was shot during a police pursuit in October 2024, but still suspended the officer's jail term.
The shooting in Cova da Moura
Odair Moniz, 43, was killed in the early hours of 21 October 2024 in the Cova da Moura neighbourhood of Amadora. Two shots were fired by PSP agent Bruno Pinto after a traffic offence and a chase. The Public Ministry argued throughout the trial that there was no evidence Moniz was carrying a knife or that he tried to attack the officer with a blade.
The court's findings
The panel of judges in Sintra ruled that Moniz did not have a knife when he was shot. Even if the officer's act could be seen as self-defence, the court said there was "a disproportion that cannot be ignored."
Neither the colleague who accompanied him, nor the remaining witnesses, no one else saw any blade, any knife at the moment the shots were fired.
The court also said there had been legitimate defence but with excess of means. The sentence, read this afternoon, noted that the penalty should be "especially attenuated."
- Odair Moniz is shot twice by PSP agent Bruno Pinto during a pursuit in Cova da Moura.
- Sintra court convicts Bruno Pinto of homicide and hands down a three-and-a-half-year suspended sentence.
The defence and prosecution positions
Defence lawyer Ricardo Serrano Vieira had asked for acquittal, arguing the officer acted in self-defence in a high-risk, aggressive situation. He maintained that the evidence produced in court did not rule out that possibility. The prosecution, by contrast, pushed for a homicide conviction and asked that the agent be barred from serving in the PSP.
The sentence
Bruno Pinto was convicted Monday to three years and six months in prison, fully suspended. The court accepted most of the facts in the prosecution's indictment and declared that there was "abundant proof that Odair had no knife of any kind."
