The prosecution, to which the Lusa agency had access, says that the 63-year-old defendant had a partner but had a “love relationship” with the victim, which she killed (through asphyxiation) with the help of a third party, unidentified during the investigation, to conceal the extramarital relationship and to keep an ATM card.
At the first trial session, at the Loures Court (Lisbon district), the defendant denied any involvement in the crime, revealing that it was the victim, José Lavos, who gave her the ATM card, in an envelope, with the code and another 300 Euros in cash.
Lidia Prilutcaia began by explaining that the victim told her to use the money when she needed it, because she had been burned in an accident at work, but, after being confronted by the presiding judge with the fact that she “bleeds [empty] his bank account in three, four withdrawals”, replied that José Lavos gave her directions to withdraw “all the money”.
The defendant justified spending (760 Euros) on taxi and food expenses, leading the presiding judge to report that her answers "were incongruous and unenlightening", and recalled that she was on sick leave and receiving money.
Others of the most debated points were the reasons why the accused did not warn neither friends nor the police that José Lavos, who called her daily, would not do so for a week until a family member warned them.
“[The defendant] continues to fetch all the money he has. Not calling a friend, not going to his house. It would be normal to worry and report to the police, because he was a friendly person who even helped her. I cannot understand that this lady, realising that something strange was happening, because she received calls every day and stopped receiving them, did not call friends, did not call the police to report the disappearance,” said the president of the collective.
Initially, the defendant replied that she did nothing, asking "what could she do" to report the disappearance. At the court's insistence, the woman added that she wanted to hide her extramarital relationship and then said she was "waiting."
“You were waiting. And until when? Until the end of time?” Judge President Ana Clara Baptista asked.
The defendant met José Lavos in 2012, but stated that only on 9 May, 2015, her birthday, did she become sexually involved with the victim, “the only time”, classifying the relationship as a friendship.
The trial is the responsibility of the same panel of judges of the murder process of triathlete Luís Grilo, chaired by Ana Clara Baptista, and also has the same prosecutor, Raul Farias.
The woman is charged with four crimes: qualified homicide, corpse desecration (these being co-authored), computer fraud and theft.
The prosecution states that, “in conjunction with the efforts and implementation of a common plan, at a place and date not specifically determined, but between 10 and 28 August 2015,” the defendant and the accomplice “struck in several parts of the body” and asphyxiated the victim to death.
Then, the prosecution adds, the defendant and the person who assisted her “put José Lavos's body in a suitcase - black suitcase - and abandoned it in a deserted place on Rua Estrada de Carcavelos, Fontanelas” in the parish of Lousa, municipality of Loures, "inside a hole of rock formations, placing stones on it in order to make their discovery more difficult".