With the death of his father due to cancer when Duarte Lima was only 11 years old, he was pressured to combine studies with work, since his mother, Maria de Jesus, was then left alone with their large offspring.
Even before graduation he married Alexina Lima de Deus and starts to invest in the stock exchange, from where he would reportedly earn a considerable amount of money.
Calls for an investigation to the Attorney General's Office, did not find criminal evidence, but did not explain the source of such huge income in Duarte Lima's bank accounts.
[1] Duarte Lima was awarded a degree in law by the Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP) in 1986, and embraced a career as a lawyer and politician.
After the O Independente controversial claims had started to fade away, he was diagnosed in 1998 with acute myeloid leukemia, the worst form of the disease with a survival rate below 40%.
During the treatments, he installed an organ in the hospital room that he occupied at the Portuguese Institute of Oncology (IPO) in Lisbon, using headphones to avoid disturbing other patients.
Rosalina Ribeiro lost an action in a Brazilian court, where she claimed part of the fortune on the grounds that she lived maritally with the businessman.
Duarte Lima stated that only came to have knowledge of the death of Rosalina on December 21, 2009, at a time that he was already in London and was preparing to travel to Hong Kong.
[5] On Thursday, 27 October 2011, Duarte Lima was formally accused of the murder of Rosalina Ribeiro by the Public Ministry of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
The arrest is related to a purchase of land in Oeiras Municipality that would be for the construction of the Portuguese Institute of Oncology (IPO), and involves a 44 million euros lending.