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Algarve |
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Englishman gets 18 years for murder
• 17 May 2007 •
 FOUR Irishmen and an English national were found guilty by Algarve’s Albufeira Tribunal for having participated in the murder of thirty-eight-year-old Cork man Michael Aherne.
The judges however, considered that it was it was proved that it was Englishman, David Figueira, who shot the deceased, so he received the heaviest punishment - an 18 year prison sentence.
The other four accused received sentences between 16 months and two years, but due to the time they had already served on remand, the court decided to release them.
The case dates back to September 2005 when police in the western city of Lagos received a call from eyewitnesses who had seen three men dragging a body by the legs and dumping it in the boot of a dark BMW, later discovered to be the victim’s own vehicle.
Carlos do Carmo, former co-ordinator for Portimão Judicial Police, who dealt with the investigation, said that the police had acted quickly following the phone call from witnesses in Lagos, as they were already intercepting the men’s mobile phones as part of a drug trafficking investigation in conjunction with Interpol. The authorities quickly tracked Aherne’s BMW to the apartment owned by David Figueira, at the then newly built and somewhat uninhabited marina in Albufeira. It was there that Michael Aherne’s naked body was found bound inside a large freezer in a penthouse apartment overlooking the marina.
David Figueira confessed to killing Ahern in self-defence. The medical examiner’s report stated that of the four bullet wounds that Aherne sustained, none was deadly, but one may have paralysed him.
“I am not a cold murderer,” David Figueira told the court, adding that he was placed in a position that he could not get out of, as he alleged that Ahern had pointed the weapon at him first. It was when it fell to the ground that Figueira said he picked it up and fired. He said, “I want to apologise to the family” (of Ahern). Figueira’s lawyer, Raul Gomes, said that from the point his client was arrested, he was honest. “He never denied shooting Michael”, and said he will be appealing to a higher court to request that the judges reduce the sentence. |  Return to Top
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