Pacheco finally granted bail in Torrado case

Panaji: Former Goa tourism minister Francisco alias Mickky Pacheco was granted conditional bail on Monday by a trial court in a culpable homicide case related to the mysterious death of his alleged lover Nadia Torrado.

After evading arrest for nearly a month, Pacheco was arrested on July 5 in connection with the mysterious death of 28-year-old Torrado.

Torrado had died on May 30 after consuming rat poison allegedly after a spat with Pacheco.

The Margao district and sessions court granted the Nationalist Congress party (NCP) legislator a conditional bail, while asking him to surrender his passport and submit a surety of Rs.25,000.

Pacheco has also been asked to report to the Crime Branch as and when required.

More than a month after he went into hiding to evade being arrested and questioned by the police in the Nadia Torrado case, former minister Francisco Mickky Pacheco had landed behind bars.

With the additional sessions court in Margao taking a dim view of the medical reports submitted on record by Hospicio hospital, where the former minister has been lodged since he surrendered, and stating that his bail application was nothing but an "abuse of the process of law", Pacheco was referred by the hospital to the Goa Medical College and Hospital for a check-up.

Specialists at GMC sent him back to Hospicio with the advice that he was fit to be discharged, something which the latter did around 5.40pm. A waiting team of the Margao town police took Mickky into custody around 6.40pm as was allowed by the court.

As Mickky stepped out of the hospital along with his friend Viola, hundreds of his supporters who had gathered outside shouted, Mickky tu kaim bhinaka, ami tujea vangda asat (Don't fear, we are with you)."

Viola then waved at the crowd and asked it to be silent to hear Mickky speak. Pacheco folded his hands to thank the people for their support. Visibly shaken, he said in a feeble voice stuttering with emotions: "I have done nothing wrong, I will come out clean." He then broke into tears in front of the cameras, saying that he had been "politically framed".

He was bundled into a waiting police vehicle that sped away to the crime branch. Viola, too, merged into the crowd that soon dispersed.