Celebs in the dock for child abuse in Portugal
November 25, 2004
By Elizabeth Nash

Madrid - Portugal's former ambassador to South Africa, Jorge Ritt, is one of the high-profile people accused of sexually preying upon vulnerable children from state orphanages, in a trial due to start today.

Chief among the seven accused in the country's worst scandal for decades is a well-known media celebrity, the television chat-show host Carlos Cruz (63).

Also charged is Carlos Silvino (47), a former caretaker and driver employed by the state-run Casa Pia children's homes, who is accused of 669 acts of child sex abuse, and of organising the supply of children for use as sex toys for members of Portugal's social and showbusiness elite.

Evidence emerged two years ago that some of Portugal's most defenceless youngsters in state care, some mentally handicapped or deaf and dumb, suffered decades of sexual abuse at the hands of those in authority and their rich friends, while senior politicians turned a blind eye.

The scandal broke when the mother of a former inmate complained that orphanage staff had abused her son. Widely publicised revelations in the press and television plunged the nation into deep shock and unleashed the deepest crisis of confidence in Portugal's legal and social institutions since the fall of the fascist dictatorship 30 years ago.

Casa Pia is a 224-year- old operation that runs 10 Lisbon homes for 4 500 young people, mostly boys, who have no family or whose parents are too poor to care for them.

Former Casa Pia employees claimed that abuse stretched back to the mid-1970s, but that the authorities covered it up instead of stopping it.

Adolescents, with their voices altered and their faces shadowed, went on television to give heart-rending testimonies of rape in cellars by adults they knew only as "Mr Engineer" or "Mr Doctor".

They said Silvino, whom they called "Bibi", offered them sweets and icecream and visits to football matches, then raped them in lavatories or dark corridors, and recruited them for sex parties with "important friends". Others, now adult, told of chilling experiences long suppressed. The nation gazed with horrified fascination and morbid self-loathing.

Also in the dock from today is Gertrude Nunes (62), charged with providing her country house for encounters between children and their alleged abusers; a former senior administrator at the orphanage; plus a doctor and a lawyer.

Thirty-two alleged victims, some under 16, are to testify before a panel of three judges. Last December, 10 people were charged, but charges against three, including Herman Jose, a popular television comedian, were dropped.

Also arrested was Pedro Pedroso, a socialist MP and former minister, who was remanded for more than four months before being freed without charge. Pedroso claimed he was the victim of a smear campaign.

Meanwhile Spanish police have arrested 90 people, including 21 minors, in raids on homes throughout Spain.

Police yesterday said suspects traded images and videos on the Internet of children engaged in "all kinds of sexual acts". - Independent Foreign Service

Priviously published: THE STAR http://www.thestar.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=132&fArticleId=2312782