Following the widespread call for the prosecution of Bruno Candie’s killer, a 77-year-old white Portuguese man implicated in the fatal shooting of the Black actor of Guinean origin was on Monday sentenced to 22 years and nine months in prison by a court in the European country.
According to Reuters, Portuguese authorities determined the July 2020 killing of 39-year-old Bruno Cande by Evaristo Marinho in Avenida de Moscavide was racially motivated. Marinho, a 77-year-old veteran who took up arms for Portugal during the war against its former colony Angola, reportedly hurled racial slurs at Cande before shooting him several times.
Some of the abusive words Marinho was said to have told the deceased Black actor before killing him included “go back to your country.”
Cande’s death triggered demonstrations against racial discrimination in Portugal’s capital city of Lisbon with protesters also calling for justice for the deceased actor as well as other people who have fallen victim to racial abuse. Cande’s death also reportedly reignited the conversation surrounding racism in the country as well as the southern European country’s historic ties to colonialism.
