Ex-PSD MP Duarte Lima goes on trial in Sintra over 2009 killing in Brazil

The charges and the 2009 case

Prosecutors in Rio de Janeiro accused Duarte Lima, a former PSD parliamentary leader, of the homicide of the 74-year-old widow of businessman Tomé Feteira. She was shot twice, once in the chest and once in the head, on the night of 7 December 2009, and her body was found the following morning on a road in Saquarema, near Rio de Janeiro. The prosecution says the motive was a transfer of 5.2 million euros from her to an account linked to Lima, and that he pressed her to sign a document confirming the money was his. When she refused, the prosecution alleges, he killed her. Lima has always denied the killing, saying the money was payment for years of legal work and that he left her alive in Maricá that evening.

A case that took 17 years to reach court

Investigators first focused on the businessman's daughter because of a dispute over the inheritance, but turned to Lima after no evidence linked her to the crime. Lima was indicted on 27 October 2011, and a Brazilian court validated the charge on 5 May 2015. In November 2016 Brazilian justice ruled the trial would take place in Portugal, since Lima holds Portuguese nationality and Portuguese law does not allow extradition of nationals. Lima had already been detained in November 2011 in the Homeland case over land deals in Oeiras, and he was sentenced in 2014 to six years for qualified fraud, serving that term at the Carregueira prison between 2019 and 2022.

The defence's prescription argument

Lima's lawyer, João Barroso Neto, asked the Sintra court to rule the case time-barred and to decide quickly, to avoid long and costly hearings. Brazilian law sets a 20-year limit for homicide, halved to 10 years when the accused is over 70, and Lima is 70. The defence says the crime lapsed on 4 May 2025, and the prosecution must respond before the court rules on the request.

“Under Brazilian law, criminal liability has been extinguished, so the present criminal proceedings must be declared extinct by prescription.”

What happens on Thursday

The trial opens on Thursday, 5 November, at 14:00 at the Sintra court. The first session is set aside for Lima's identification and questioning, and he is expected to remain silent, while a close friend of the victim, one of the first people to report her disappearance, is due to testify that afternoon. The court must also decide the prescription request. If Lima is convicted, the Portuguese Penal Code provides 8 to 16 years in prison for simple homicide and 12 to 25 years for qualified homicide, according to SAPO. The case file, with 16 volumes and video testimony, reached the Sintra court in October. The defence contests that other possible culprits were never investigated, while radar records placed a rented Ford Focus near the site around the time of the killing, a finding investigators say does not prove the car was at the scene.