Rui Pedro Teixeira Mendonça (born 28 January 1987) is a Portuguese child who went missing on 4 March 1998 in Lousada, northern Portugal.
[11] On 1 September 1998, 13 police forces raided alleged members of an international child pornography ring known as the Wonderland Club.
In later years, Rui Pedro has been identified in pictures regarding the pedophile ring and the worldwide Operation Cathedral movement.
o[14] Mendonça's tutor called his parents because the child had not turned up for his 5:00 PM lesson, and they quickly initiated a search for him.
Dias was in an emotional state while being questioned, and simply replied that he did not know the boy's whereabouts, but that the police "should close the borders".
Filomena Teixeira said that police didn't investigate members of the family, neighbors and Dias' car, in which witnesses said they saw Mendonça go into.
[21] Through the years, Ana Leal's[23] investigative journalism in TVI brought new leads to Mendonça's case, always before the police.
"[24] In two photos presented in the PJ (Judiciary Police) process for a SIC report, the inspector Luís Bordadágua said that it was possible to see resemblances with Mendonça in the archives found with pedophiles.
[27] In another photo that Ana Leal had access to in 2002 and gave to the judiciary power, it's possible to see a gagged boy with signs of torture that the family recognized as Mendonça.
[28] When the photo of the supposed Mendonça was presented to the media in October 2002, Sá Fernandes hadn't been able to access the PJ process for a month.
[31]The journalist also critiqued the law for having allowed for Mendonça's grandfather to have the role that the Portuguese State had spending money on the Madeleine McCann case.
[32] In one of the Dias' hearings, it was brought up that the defendant came from a poor family, was 22 and played with an 11 year old child at the time of the disappearance.
[33] Manuel Mendonça said that he and the neighbors noticed that Dias' financial resources increased after the boy's disappearance and that the first PJ team didn't believe the information received from both the prostitute and the family.
[21] The chief-inspector Henrique Noronha said in 2011 that in the reconstitution there was "a hiatus of time that we couldn't figure out (...) We were a bit perplexed [when Afonso Dias said that he] stood in a place looking at nothing and burning the midnight".
[36] Hélder Silva, that was one of the five children that saw Mendonça for the last time, told the Correio da Manhã that Dias "Was very weird.
[37] In 2011, João André Mendonça that when he was giving his testimony in GNR (Republican National Guard) in 1998, Dias asked him to "not open his mouth" and that "the authorities should close the borders (...) Maybe they still have time".
[38] In an interview to Grande Revista of RTP in 2012, he said that he does not talk more because of all the help he gave to authorities that only served for his prosecution thirteen years later.
[40] Ricardo Sá Fernandes, Mendonça family's lawyer, stated in 2017: "I keep saying that what I would really like is for Afonso Dias to tell us what happened with Rui Pedro after they left the prostitute.
Acts with total indifference (...) It was proven that the defendant kidnapped Rui Pedro, taking him to Lustosa against the minor's parent's will.
[40] Afraid of being kidnapped and missing Mendonça, one of the boy's friend at school tried to commit suicide, two months after the disappearance.
[44] A man that worked in a gas station guaranteed that at the time of the disappearance he saw Mendonça, in the centre of the village of Lousada, walking next to two other boys.
The court questioned the witness about his statements to the GNR the day following the disappearance, where he said he saw two children passed by on bikes, but that neither was Mendonça.
[32] According to the lawyer Fernando Arrobas da Silva the doubts raised in court were the reason a conviction was avoided in the 2012 trial.
[50] In the show Praça da Alegria, of RTP, the judge Rui Rangel was questioned about the thirteen years of investigation for a kidnapping accusation and the lack of its efficiency.
The judge answered that the police is efficient, but that it "was needed that the Public Prosecution explains with clarity why it took thirteen years".
[34] Carlos do Carmo stated that the case should have been immediately have been declared as a kidnapping, because the child followed a routine when he disappeared.
He added that the bicycle and the place where it was found in the day of the disappearance should have been examined, which didn't happen since it was a missing person case.
[34] Hernâni Carvalho ended the interview by telling Carlos do Carmo:"I would like to leave this enigma: by curiosity, by paradox or by pure coincidence, two days before Rui Pedro disappeared (...) an eleven year old boy disappeared (...) no one found out anything about him either"[34]Júlia Pinheiro questioned Francisco Moita Flores in 2011 about the police not having connected the fact that Afonso Dias had ties to Holland.
It was also questioned the fact Dias' financial life wasn't investigated and that during the reconstitution, the camera stopped recording the event, without it being noticed.
[21] Mendonça's disappearance was widely covered by the Portuguese media and the case's developments continue to make headlines.