Europe - Portugal Record prison sentences for two pedophiles Two men accused of sexually assaulting minors were sentenced on Monday to the maximum sentence of 25 years in prison, an unprecedented sentence in Portugal for paedophilia. "This is an exemplary sentence that will go down in the history of law in Portugal," Maribel Amaral, a lawyer for one of the defendants, told AFP. The 27-year-old defendant was convicted of sexually abusing eight minors, including babies. Amaral, who has been held in pre-trial detention since 2017, lived with his parents and sister in Agueda (200 km north of Lisbon) and sexually abused his nephews when they were entrusted to him in the absence of their parents. He was also convicted of setting up an international paedophile network operating on the "darknet", the hidden part of the internet, where he shared photos and videos of sexual abuse of babies and children. Four people close to the man, including his parents, were also prosecuted for complicity and omission, but the court acquitted them. "The mother had no idea that her son was manipulating her," Alves said. The other defendant, a computer scientist living near Sintra, on the outskirts of Lisbon, was prosecuted for sexual abuse of his daughter, among others, and then sharing videos and photos on this child pornography network. The court found the two men guilty of a total of 44 crimes of sexual assault and two of child pornography.