Portuguese TV star on child sex charges

Giles Tremlett

Portugal's most famous television personality is among eight people to have been indicted on paedophilia charges, according to court documents yesterday.

Carlos Cruz, known in Portugal as "Mr TV" after presenting a series of popular programmes over the past two decades, will go on trial for allegedly participating in sex sessions with young boys from the state-run Casa Pia children's homes.

The scandal of the children's home has riveted the country for almost two years and has rocked Portugal's political and judicial establishments. No trial date has been set.

Mr Cruz, once voted the most popular man in Portugal, has denied the allegations and said he will sue for damages.

His lawyer, Antonio Serra Lopes, told the Guardian that mobile phone records proved his client could not have been present at most of the alleged sessions with the boys from the orphanage. "They wanted to get someone very popular ... It is like something out of Kafka," he said.

The Casa Pia scandal has snowballed as allegations of systematic sexual abuse and official refusals to investigate complaints have become public knowledge. It has also led to complaints that a witch-hunt is being carried out as some well-known names have been linked to the investigation.

Public hysteria reached a peak at Christmas when a Portuguese newspaper reported that President Jorge Sampaio had been named in an anonymous letter to investigators.

Mr Sampaio went on television to denounce the reports as having "the gravest conse quences for the respect due the president of the republic".

The attorney general, Jose Souto Moura, described the anonymous letter which mentioned Mr Sampaio as "irrelevant" to the case.

Court documents quoted yesterday showed that charges had been dropped against Paulo Pedroso, a former labour minister and leading member of the opposition Socialist party and against two other men, including a television comedian.

Mr Pedroso spent four months in jail last year before being placed under house arrest while allegations that he was involved in 23 child sex abuse crimes were investigated.

While all the accused professed innocence, what has become clear during the investigation is that sexual abuse in the Casa Pia system, which cares for 4,000 children in 10 homes, has been commonplace.

Counsellors who interviewed children at the home say more than 100 boys may have been abused.

A former secretary of state for families, Teresa Costa Macedo, said Portugal's former president, General Ramalho Eanes, was told by former Casa Pia boys some 20 years ago of abuse there. She had sent a dossier containing photographs and testimonies from children to police, but they had done nothing about it, while she was subjected to a campaign of threats.

An employee at one of the Casa Pia homes had acted as "a procurer of children for well-known people who range from diplomats and politicians to people linked to the media," Ms Macedo claimed.