Former priest Anastácio Alves was sentenced to six and a half years in prison, with an effective sentence, for committing four crimes of sexual abuse of a child and one crime of sexual acts with a teenager. It is also prohibited from having guardianship of minors and exercising a profession that involves living with minors for the next seven years. The ruling was announced this afternoon, at the Funchal court (Building 2000).
The defendant allegedly abused a minor and the crimes occurred between 2015 and 2016, at the victim’s grandmother’s house, when the former priest, who was posted to a parish in Paris, was traveling to Madeira for vacation.
Anastácio Alves awaited trial in freedom. However, at the end of reading the ruling, the Public Prosecutor’s Office asked for the coercive measures to be tightened and for his preventive detention, given that he had already worked abroad (France and Switzerland) and could avoid serving his sentence there. However, judge Carla Meneses determined that. To avoid the danger of escape, it will be enough to prohibit Anastácio Alves from leaving the Autonomous Region of Madeira.