The body of former BPP president João Rendeiro will be repatriated to Lisbon this Thursday on a flight from the Angolan airline TAAG, a source close to the case told Lusa on Wednesday.
The Embassy of Portugal in South Africa contracted the services of an Anglo-South African funeral company in Johannesburg to send the body of the former banker to Portugal. The flight will make a technical stopover in the Angolan capital, he said.
According to the same source, the transfer process of the former banker, who was found dead on May 12 in the Westville prison in Durban, more than 500 kilometers from Johannesburg, should cost the State about 3,000 euros.
The South African Police (SAPS) collected “all the evidence I needed” for the ongoing investigation to the causes of the death of the former banker, allowing the delivery of the body for repatriation after the autopsy, he stressed.
The South African funeral company that will send the body to Portugal assists the accredited diplomatic representations in the country in the international repatriation of mortal remains to countries in Europe, the United Kingdom, Russia and Ukraine, among others, he stressed.
The removal of the body from the South African state morgue in Pinetown, suburbs of Durban, where he stayed more than two weekstook place on Friday afternoon and the transfer to Johannesburg took place the following day, carried out by the Portuguese authorities in South Africa.
The body of the former banker has already been removed from the morgue in Durban, and is now in Johannesburg.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MNE) has already clarified, regarding the transfer of Rendeiro’s body, that the “hiring of the funeral home and other decisions and processing” of the process are the responsibility of the family of the former president of the BPP.
In response to the Lusa agency, the MNE said that “it has been in articulation with the representatives of the family and accompanying the entire situation, providing support and issuing the necessary documentation, that is, with the transcript of the death to the Portuguese legal regime and issuance of a translation permit.
The MNE reiterates that “in the event of the death of a national citizen abroad, the consular office of the area of jurisdiction where the death occurs monitors the situation, providing support to family members who request it and, upon presentation of the certificate of death, we proceed to the transcription of the death to the Portuguese legal regime”.
After this transcription – adds the MNE – if the family or the funeral home acting on their behalf requests it, the Portuguese consular office can issue a transfer permit, which will allow the family to bring the body of the deceased citizen to Portugal.
João Rendeiro, 69, was found dead on May 12 and was due in court the following morning, according to a note from the South African Department of Correctional Services.
João Rendeiro found dead in prison
The former president of the BPP had been detained in South Africa since December 11, 2021 awaiting extradition, after three months of evading Portuguese justice to avoid serving a sentence in Portugal.
Source: Observadora
