Ex-councilwoman Matilde Alves Judged In March For Defaming Mayor Of Porto

The former councilor of the Chamber of Porto Matilde Alves begins to be judged on Wednesday in the process in which she is accused by the Public Ministry (MP) of defaming the mayor of the municipality, Rui Moreira, on social networks The information was provided to the Lusa agency by a source from the Porto Local Criminal Court, known as the Bolhão Court, adding that the first session is scheduled for 9:30 am on March 1st, with continuation in the afternoon and on March 3rd.

On June 28, the criminal instruction court (TIC) of Porto pronounced (decided to put the former mayor on trial) in the exact terms of the MP's accusation The defendant will respond for aggravated defamation for writing on her Facebook page messages "offensive to the image, credibility and prestige" of the mayor of Porto, who became an assistant in the process, after filing a complaint with the MP.

According to the MP, Rui Moreira took office as Mayor of Porto on October 22, 2013, while the defendant was a PSD councilor in the Rui Rio executive, with the responsibility for housing, "her mandate ended in 2013, still during the first term" of Rui Moreira, re-elected in the 2017 and 2021 municipal elections "It so happens that, in the period between April 25, 2019 and May 24, 2020, The defendant produced several statements about the assistant, offensive to his image, credibility and prestige, as president of the city council in question", says the accusation.

According to the MP, between April 25, 2019 and May 24, 2020, the defendant made 16 publications against the mayor of Porto, in which she says, namely, that Rui Moreira is "a coward, a complex dictator, a liar, petty, resentful" and that he "can't stand criticism" and "blocks anyone who makes them" , also alluding to some social communication In the publications, the former councilor criticizes the posture and decisions of Rui Moreira and the Porto municipality in various matters, addressing topics such as the Selminho process, the concession of paid parking in the city, the garbage accumulated in the streets of the city or the "explosions in the quarry 50 meters from the Arrábida Bridge".

"Moreira is not even a Liberal! He is a complex dictator, dressed up with some qualifiers that some media like to make Moreira is a despicable being!", Wrote the defendant, in one of the Facebook posts.

According to the prosecution, when uttering the expressions contained in the publications, the defendant "knew that the assistant [Rui Moreira] was mayor of Porto City Council and that he was acting in the exercise of his duties" "Wanting to achieve, as he did, the same in terms of dignity, honor and consideration as holder of a political office.

Knowing well that the comments he made would be viewed, as they were, by an endless number of people, because they were publicized in one of the networks social services with greater popularity and notoriety in Portugal", maintains the MP For the MP, the fact that she had already assumed the position of councilor in the Porto Chamber, "it was her duty to find out the truth of the facts, which she did not do, adulterating them".

On April 29, 2022, when she made a statement at the TIC in Porto, the former councilor told the criminal investigation judge that, from the moment Rui Moreira made a publication on Facebook in which he "injured and insulted" his family, "namely his husband", Fernando Charrua (former PSD deputy and professor) felt "freed from her moral duty" for having been a councilor in the municipality, and assumed her "civic intervention" as a citizen The now retired teacher also mentioned that, after Rui Moreira's publication on the social network, the publications he made on Facebook on various subjects, aimed at the mayor, were just shares of "newspapers", stressing that "he did not invent anything", for "it was about facts", and nothing prevented her from being a free citizen and having an opinion.

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