Arguido
named subject in Portuguese investigations
Arguido (pronounced [ɐɾˈɣwiðu]; if male) or arguida (pronounced [ɐɾˈɣwiðɐ]; if female), normally translated "named suspect" or "formal suspect", is a status in Portuguese type legal systems, including those of Portugal, Macau, Angola and Mozambique.
It is given to a person whom the authorities suspect may have committed an offence.
This designation does not exist in certain other jurisdictions.
In a criminal investigation a person has to be declared an arguido prior to being arrested. Portuguese law makes a distinction between arguido and suspect.
The rights of an arguido
If a person becomes an arguido, they automatically gain certain rights that a witness or suspect would not have. An arguido has the right to be accompanied by a lawyer when questioned. The investigating police may ask the arguido more direct accusatory questions (the answers to which would not be admissible in court if possibly self-incriminatory and asked of a non-arguido) but the arguido must be presented with whatever evidence is held against them, and unlike a witness has the right to remain silent, not to answer any question that may incriminate the person, and does not face legal action for lying.
Witnesses in criminal investigations are legally bound to co-operate with the police and do not have the right to silence and face legal actions if they lie. Because of the legal advantages, some individuals apply for arguido status to be given to themselves, e.g.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q16152990. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Arguido” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.