Two PSP Officers Accused of Lying About Odair Moniz's 'Knife' Could Still Face Trial After the Appeal Court Voids Their Clearance
Lisbon's Court of Appeal found that the decision not to try them failed to set out the facts behind it, and sent the case back to an investigating judge. The ruling was not unanimous.
Two PSP officers accused of lying about a knife said to have been found beside Odair Moniz, the man shot dead by police in the Cova da Moura neighbourhood of Amadora in October 2024, could still face trial. The Lisbon Court of Appeal (Tribunal da Relação de Lisboa) has ruled that the decision not to send them to trial was invalid, and has ordered an investigating judge to decide the question again.
The ruling, dated 9 July, became public this week after it was reported by Público; the Lusa news agency has since seen it. It was not unanimous.
Why the appeal judges set the decision aside
The two officers were charged by the Ministério Público with giving false testimony. In February 2026 the Central Criminal Investigation Court (Tribunal Central de Instrução Criminal) decided not to send them to trial. Judge Cláudia Pina found that the officers should have been questioned by prosecutors as suspects (arguidos) rather than as witnesses, and annulled that questioning for that reason. She concluded that it was "not proven, for lack of evidence, that the defendants knowingly made false statements".
The appeal court found a procedural flaw in that decision. According to the ruling, the lower court had stated "only that there is no null evidence and that, for lack of evidence, a decision of non-indictment is issued". In the appeal judges' view, a pre-trial decision of this kind must set out which facts it considers sufficiently indicated and which it does not, and explain why. "We consider that we are dealing with an irregularity that affects the decision of the case," the ruling says. The case therefore goes back to an investigating judge for a fresh decision on whether the two officers should be tried.
One of the appeal judges, Jorge Rosas de Castro, dissented. He argued that requiring the lower court to list the facts would add "nothing useful to the solution of the problem set out".
The ruling does not decide whether the officers lied. It means only that the decision clearing them must be taken again, and properly reasoned, before the matter can be considered closed or sent to trial.
The killing and the knife
Odair Moniz, 43, lived in the Bairro do Zambujal in Amadora. He was shot dead in neighbouring Cova da Moura on 21 October 2024 by PSP officer Bruno Pinto, after he tried to flee and resisted arrest following a traffic offence. His death set off several nights of unrest in the Lisbon area and protests over policing in the city's poorer neighbourhoods.
The knife became central to the case. In June the Sintra court sentenced Bruno Pinto to three years and six months, suspended, finding that there had been "abundant evidence that Odair did not have any knife". "Neither the colleague who was with him, nor the other witnesses, nobody else saw any blade, any knife at the moment the shots were fired," the judge said, adding that there had been "self-defence, but with excessive means".
That verdict is itself under appeal, from both sides: the officer's defence is seeking an acquittal, while the Moniz family is seeking an effective prison term and the officer's dismissal from the force. In August it emerged that Pinto was back on duty.
The false-testimony case concerns what happened after the shooting rather than the shooting itself. If an investigating judge now sends the two officers to trial, the question of how a knife came to be reported at the scene, when the trial court found Moniz had none, would be argued in open court for the first time.
