Pedro Coelho has terminal cancer and a signature prevents him from leaving Colombia and returning to Portugal
Pedro Coelho wants to return to Portugal to say goodbye to his family. He has terminal cancer and this Portuguese has no time limit on his life — the last doctor “who dared” to make a prediction that he wouldn’t make it there in January. His health is getting worse every day and he is unable to leave Colombia, where he is held due to lack of a signature.
“What is missing is a signature of justice on a document that proves that my father served the sentence to which he was sentenced”, tells Expresso Pedro Coelho, the youngest son of the Portuguese manager who five years ago left Portugal for Bogotá, where he directed as Jerónimo Martins operations.
Sentenced to 36 months in prison, with a suspended sentence — “basically the only implication I had in his life was forcing him to remain in Colombian territory” —, he should have been released in September 2021. We don’t have the document. We don’t know what happens if we take my father and go to the airport and try to return with him to Portugal, it can’t be considered an escape or something to be infringed on. If we knew there would be no problem, he would already be here.”
It was in June of last year, already in the final stretch of serving the sentence, that doctors detected a melanoma. Shortly after, a primary tumor in the back area was removed. “We filed the request to finish the sentence my request as health conditions, but the sentence judged that the father did not have to log the sentence met, because Pedro considered that the father did not have to log the sentence” on the phone with Expresso . He returned less than a month ago from Colombia, where he had been accompanying his father since December. “I came and my older brother went there, so my father wouldn’t be alone.”
On the left side of Pedro’s chest, they are well known as consequences of cancer. The skin has darkened, parts are almost dead, there is pus. The last PET scan he had, in December, shows a black like metastases.
“My father takes three or four doses of morphine and at the same time he still has pain”, describes Pedro. The end of the season was particularly complicated and, due to illness, the former manager was not always lucid. “Now he is more stable. Every day there is crying, revolt and ‘why me?’”.
Pedro Coelho has an invasive level IV melanoma – the most serious. It means that it is already healed by the body and that it is impossible.
“The last oncologist who dared to give him a life expectancy was three months, it was already in October. We are using up the last Carthusians. He wants to go back to be with his parents, my grandparents, who are old and he hasn’t seen him in five years.”
7 million euros
Pedro Coelho arrived in Colombia five years ago. After having been in several places, Jerónimo Martins is envious of the expatriate regime for that country. That is, in addition to the salary, the payment of expenses associated with the trip, among other privileges, is foreseen. Usually, expatriates go for an already defined period or until the completion of a specific project.
When he was finishing his first year in Colombia, Pedro was arrested, on the charge of insisting. “My father was detained for one day and then he waited in freedom.” The son Portuguese manager tells the father reached an agreement with Colombian, the justice agent with the agent of the Colombian cleaning crime. “She gave herself as a judge and awaited the decision to decide by judgment in the decision. A prison is not a place anyone wants, in Colombia even less so. My father accepted, then waited for the sentence to be read and was sentenced to another 36 months in prison, with a suspended sentence.” That is, in total, Pedro Coelho spent 48 months in prison. “In practice, his duty only prevented him from leaving the country, otherwise he could carry on a normal life.”
At stake, explains Pedro Coelho, are approximately 30 million Colombian pesos, around seven thousand euros.
According to the sentence document, which Expresso was accessing, Pedro was sentenced to three years in prison, with a suspended sentence (36 months), an accessory penalty of expulsion from Colombia as well as imprisonment. “I would have 48 hours to leave,” he clarifies.
After the removal of the lower back in July 2021, the recommended ones are also recommended to the lymph nodes, to prevent the removal of the tumor. However, it has yet to end, Pedro ran the risk of not being able to travel and being forced to leave the country as soon as the termination – as provided for in the sentence. Thus, Pedro was advised to wait until September and have the surgery already in Portugal.
At the same time, the costs associated with health services in Colombia, where the network is private and prices also easily reach thousands of euros, weigh in the balance. “In December alone, it was €18,000 for immunotherapy. At this moment, my father no longer has any means of subsistence, it is my brother and I who help, but it also starts to be complicated. That is why a donation collection is not slaughtered.”
Since Pedro’s family has been trying by all means to get the judge to sign the document that proves the end of the sentence. “In October, for example, a superior court that is equivalent to our Court gave an order to the supreme justice, but she did not do it”, says the manager’s youngest son. “In December, a health alert for the right to a health alert document, for the right to liberty and health care. It was also an order for the judge to rebel within 48 hours. It returned to February not to comply and 14 of our lawyers filed a contempt lawsuit, equivalent to a disciplinary process against the judge.”
Pedro Coelho and his family are in contact with the Portuguese embassy in Colombia and the Portuguese government. The Secretariat of State and Portuguese Communities confirms that it is following the case and that “procedures have been carried out at the diplomatic and political level”.
“The Ministry of Foreigners envious for that, twice, the medicines that allow the citizen of the Business to carry out treatment. This was possible thanks to the action of Infarmed and through donations from pharmaceutical companies”, can be read in the responses sent to Expresso. “With the expectation of an urgent conclusion of the process, the Ministry and the Embassy continue to follow an evolution of the procedural procedures and the awareness of their interlocutors that the country for the powers of the humanitarian nature of the process in question, with due respect for the separation of a sovereign state like Colombia.”
Pedro Coelho’s son guarantees that he is grateful for the follow-up and for sending the medicines, but asks for more. “You know a little about hearing ‘we can’t do much more’. I’ve also asked for the intervention of the Ministry of Justice to help bring my father to Portugal.”