Prominent figures detained as child-sex scandal rocks Portugal
Elizabeth Nash
Madrid - Portugal's Socialist Party leader Eduardo Ferro Rodrigues has been called to testify in a child-sex scandal that has ripped through the country's political and showbusiness elite.
The Lisbon case has shocked the nation and shattered public confidence in Portugal's politicians and legal system, in one of the worst crises the country has experienced.
Rodrigues is the latest in a stream of prominent politicians, diplomats and TV talkshow hosts to be implicated in a paedophile ring said to have preyed for decades on boys in a state-run orphanage.
Rodrigues, who was due to appear in court today, was likely to be asked whether he had covered up illicit activities.
He is not suspected of participating in them. However, his influential deputy, the former labour minister Paulo Pedroso, stands accused on 15 accounts of child-sex abuse.
Portuguese public opinion has been shaken by allegations that police and senior authorities allowed powerful clients to abuse the boys sexually and prostitute them, and did nothing to stop them for 30 years.
Several former inmates of the Casa Pia boys' home in Lisbon have described the sexual abuse they received in the 1970s and 1980s.
Pedroso (38) is accused of committing offences in the late 1990s. He resigned all his party responsibilities before he was detained on May 22, and on Thursday stepped down as MP.
An official report recently revealed that among the children still living at the Casa Pia, at least 128 had been subjected to sexual abuse.
Many of the victims are deaf and dumb.
On Friday, the popular comedian and TV chat-show host Herman José was questioned in connection with the case. He was released pending further inquiries. He insisted he had done nothing wrong.
Seven suspects have so far been detained during court investigations that opened into the scandal last year. The chief suspect is a former orphanage employee, Carlos Silvino, known as Bibi, accused of raping the children in his care and procuring minors for prostitution.
Silvino, a Casa Pia product, was denounced to the police by a former inmate who told his story to a newspaper. He denies any wrongdoing.
Investigating journalists, helped by two former inmates, reported that Bibi had abused children for 30 years while working for Case Pia.
Former inmates said he was protected by important public figures who used him as an intermediary to obtain boys for them. One former inmate, Pedro Namora, a lawyer, said he received death threats for spilling the beans.
The best-known detainee is Carlos Cruz, Portugal's most famous TV presenter, and a friend of José's. Also in jail is Silvino's former lawyer Hugo Marçal; a doctor at the institution, Joao Ferreia Diniz; the former director, Manuel Abrantes; and a former ambassador to Unesco, Jorge Ritto. All are accused of abusing children.
Former president Antonio Ramalho Eanes, former foreign secretary Jaime Gama and the police all knew of the abuse, the erstwhile secretary of state for families told parliament in December.
Teresa Costa Macedo, who was responsible for children's homes in the early 1980s, said state television filmed six boys, who told Eanes about the abuse at Casa Pia, but the footage was never broadcast.
Costa Macedo said she sent reports containing testimonies and photographs to the police 20 years ago, but they did nothing. Police first denied her reports existed, but then produced them. Costa Macedo said she received anonymous threats to stop her pursuing the case.
According to Catalina Pestana, who took over as the home's director in November, Casa Pia still suffers "the atmosphere of a terror movie".
"There are other people involved, but the children don't know their names. They only know their faces, and call them 'Mr Doctor' or 'Mr Engineer'." - Independent Foreign Service