Portugal child sex trial ends

LISBON – A child sex abuse trial that has lasted nearly six years is drawing to a close after producing chilling testimony from dozens of alleged victims and shaking public trust in Portugal’s institutions.

Six men, including a national television celebrity and a retired ambassador, and one woman are accused of sexually abusing minors and adolescents, raping children and running a paedophile ring at a state-run children’s home in Lisbon called Casa Pia. The court is to rule on more than 800 alleged crimes in a verdict due today.

The trial, believed to be Portugal’s longest, has included testimony from more than 800 witnesses and experts, including 32 alleged victims who have given gruesome accounts of rape by adults in dark cellars and nighttime car journeys to secluded houses used by the alleged sex ring during the 1990s.

The Casa Pia is a 230-year-old institution caring for roughly 4 500 needy children, most of them living in dormitories at its premises around the capital.

A whistleblower broke the scandal in 2002, and police opened an investigation that lasted more than a year. – Nampa-AP

---