The Lisbon Court of Appeal has reduced the suspended prison sentence for a former SEF director who attempted to shield the three inspectors convicted in the 2020 death of Ukrainian citizen Ihor Homeniuk at Lisbon airport. António Sérgio Henriques, the Border Director for Lisbon at the time of the fatal beating, will now serve 1 year and 10 months suspended instead of the original 2 years and 6 months handed down by the Lisbon Local Criminal Court in January 2025.
The appeals court reclassified Henriques' crime from denial of justice and prevarication to the lesser offense of abuse of power. One of three appeals judges argued for full acquittal, citing unclear prosecution language about what Henriques knew. The case remains a benchmark for Portugal's immigration enforcement reforms following SEF's 2023 disbandment.
The Accountability Gap
António Sérgio Henriques, now around 60, was dismissed from civil service in 2021 after investigators determined he deliberately sanitized the official occurrence report following Homeniuk's death on March 12, 2020. The original trial court found he omitted critical details—specifically that "physical force" had been used and that the victim had been left handcuffed and unattended for 8 hours—in what prosecutors described as a calculated effort to prevent disciplinary action against three subordinate inspectors.
The appeals court downgraded the offense, arguing the evidence better supported a conviction for abuse of power rather than the more serious charges of obstruction and malfeasance. The decision was not unanimous: one presiding judge argued that the Public Prosecutor's indictment failed to explicitly state Henriques had "knowledge of the circumstances of the death," a technicality that she believed warranted full acquittal.
Two Security Guards Also Confirmed
The appeals court upheld the 6-month suspended sentences for two private security guards who worked at the Temporary Installation Center (EECIT) at Humberto Delgado Airport. These guards were convicted of illegal practice of private security for their role the night before Homeniuk's death, when they bound the 40-year-old Ukrainian's arms and legs with adhesive tape.
Trial judges in the January 2025 verdict found their actions contributed to "the escalation of the situation" and spread a false narrative that Homeniuk was violent—a characterization that prosecutors argued primed the three inspectors for their fatal assault the following day. Two other inspectors accused of negligent homicide by omission in the secondary trial were acquitted.
The Primary Convictions Stand
The three former SEF inspectors directly responsible for Homeniuk's death—Duarte Laja, Luís Silva, and Bruno Sousa—were convicted in May 2021 by the Lisbon Central Criminal Court for qualified assault resulting in death, receiving sentences of 9 years each (Sousa initially received 7 years, later equalized on appeal). They were placed under house arrest in March 2020 during the investigation, then surrendered to Évora Prison in August 2023 once their convictions became final.
All three walked free on conditional release after serving two-thirds of their terms, a timeline that drew renewed criticism from human rights advocates. The family's lawyer, José Gaspar Schwalbach, described the appeals court's refusal to reduce their sentences—and the decision to equalize Sousa's term upward—as a "positive" development.
Homeniuk died of asphyxiation after being beaten and left prone and handcuffed in a detention room at the airport. He had been denied entry to Portugal at the border and was awaiting deportation.
What This Reveals About Portugal's Immigration System
For anyone navigating Portugal's immigration bureaucracy, the Homeniuk case is a stark reminder of the institutional failures that prompted the October 2023 extinction of SEF and the creation of the Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA). Administrative functions now sit with AIMA, while policing duties were redistributed to the PSP, GNR, and Judicial Police.
Yet the transition has been rocky. Critics, including the Jesuit Refugee Service Portugal, describe AIMA's rollout as "poorly managed," with backlogs persisting and a unit beginning operations in August 2025 to handle deportation cases—suggesting structural continuities with the former system.
International scrutiny continues. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture noted "a considerable number of credible allegations of ill-treatment" by Portuguese police, while Amnesty International Portugal flagged degrading conditions for migrants detained at Lisbon Airport, including people forced to sleep in interview rooms for extended periods. The Portuguese Ombudsman issued a critical report on the cover-up attempts, and the International Organization for Migration launched a "Mainstreaming Human Rights in Detention Centers" project to address systemic gaps.
Residents and expats dealing with visa renewals, work permits, or family reunification should be aware that Portugal's immigration enforcement remains in active reform, meaning policies, personnel, and agency structures continue to evolve. Processing times may be longer than expected as AIMA absorbs the caseload and works to rebuild institutional credibility.
The Legal and Political Fallout
Legal costs continue to mount across multiple proceedings. Beyond the criminal trials, civil service dismissals, and appeals, the case has become a reference point for ongoing immigration policy debates. Advocacy groups argue the reforms don't go far enough: the Jesuit Refugee Service and others continue to call for more regular entry routes and full integration rights, arguing that treating job-seekers as criminals—complete with airport detention areas that function as de facto holding facilities—creates the conditions for abuse.
A Slow Reckoning
The Homeniuk case is Portugal's most visible immigration enforcement scandal in a generation, one that exposed not just individual brutality but systemic oversight failures. The reduction of Henriques' sentence—especially the split judicial opinion—signals how difficult it remains to hold mid-level officials accountable when the chain of command blurs and institutional culture prioritizes silence over transparency.
For residents watching from the outside, the message is clear: Portugal's border enforcement apparatus is still being rebuilt, and the legal battles stemming from a single night in March 2020 remain ongoing.
