Cecilia Haddad’s ex-husband Felipe Torres wins life insurance, property fight
Felipe Torres, the former husband of murdered Brazilian mining executive Cecilia Haddad, has won rights to millions worth of life insurance and property.
Felipe Torres, the former husband of murdered Brazilian mining executive Cecilia Haddad, will take full ownership of millions of dollars in life insurance and property after her father accepted that legally the couple was still married in Australia.
Despite Haddad agreeing to divorce months before her death, Mr Torres, who worked with her at BHP Billiton and now lives in Perth, successfully argued he was her “next of kin” in Australia.
In the NSW Supreme Court yesterday, Shauna Jarrett, acting for Haddad’s father, Jose Ibrahim Haddad, asked judge Geoffrey Lindsay to cancel orders made last time in court.
Earlier, Mr Haddad had asked for “special letters of administration” be made to protect his daughter’s estate.
“The net effect of all of this is the father concedes the marriage remains and the husband is entitled to the estate here?” Judge Lindsay asked.
“That’s correct, Your Honour,” Ms Jarrett replied.
There was some confusion over an apartment at Ryde, in Sydney’s northwest, but otherwise the estate belongs to Mr Torres.
“Who was it that will be the beneficiary from the estate — only the defendant?” Judge Lindsay asked. “Only the defendant,” Craig Birtles, barrister for Mr Torres, responded.
The court had previously heard no will was found among Haddad’s belongings, and she may have had $1.8 million in life insurance, superannuation, two investment properties and an off-the-plan property.
The pair wed in Brazil and had begun the process of dissolving their marriage but no similar application was made in Australia.
“My interest is husband and next of kin of the deceased and person entitled to the whole of the deceased’s estate on intestacy,” an affidavit from Mr Torres, prepared by his lawyer, Indran Sinnadurai, said.
Mr Torres told Haddad’s father in an email seen by The Australian in May that he would “leave it to the family” to organise her estate as “I do not have anything to do with it”.
Haddad, 38, was found by kayakers in the Lane Cove River on April 29. Brazilian authorities said she was strangled to death.
Her former partner, Mario Marcelo Santoro, left Australia for Brazil the weekend she died.
The 40-year-old has since been arrested by Brazilian authorities over his role in the murder, and was reported to have been moved to Rio de Janeiro’s notorious Benfica jail. “I’ve ended my life,” he reportedly said as he was arrested without resistance.
Fabio Cardoso, senior policeman leading the investigation, said Mr Santoro had shown “erratic behaviour … He is swinging between normality and depression, when he starts crying.
“I had a quick conversation with him. He seemed surprised, really surprised, about the fact we had managed to secure an arrest warrant for him based on our own investigations. He fled Australia believing that in Brazil nothing would happen to him because he couldn’t be extradited.”
Brazil’s constitution prohibits extradition of natural citizens, even for crimes proven overseas, though NSW police have said they are working through commonwealth channels to bring a conclusion to their investigation.
The case returns for a mention on August 27.