Six arrested men, including PSP chief, spend night in police cells
MAL, the acronym for Movimento Armilar Lusitano (Lusitanian Armillary Movement) – dismantled yesterday in a major police swoop, was created with the objective of bringing down Portugal’s ‘regime’ (democracy as we know it) through violent terrorist actions against state institutions.
This is the opening paragraph of a report today on the extraordinary police coup undertaken yesterday.
When Manuela Santos, the director of UNCT (the national PJ police counter-terrorism unit), spoke to journalists at a press conference, she referred to the group having shown signs of ‘preparing’ for something.
Now, it transpires that that something may well have been to ‘invade parliament’.
Among the six people arrested yesterday is PSP division chief Bruno Gonçalves, a former army sergeant, and reported “specialist in combat weapons”.
Correio da Manhã recalls that Gonçalves was involved in 2013 in the fatal shooting of an 18-year-old teen in Campolide, in the context of a police chase. “The case was archived due to the understanding that the PSP shot was fired in ‘legitimate defence’”. It may well be that this case is now reopened, particularly as another PSP agent who also claimed ‘self defence’ in a fatal shooting, is shortly to go on trial for the murder.
But, for now, focus is on MAL and everything that it stood for.
According to CM, the name of the father of a CHEGA MP has been identified among a list of AML supporters. Contacted by the paper, the man has denied any connection with the group.
Says the paper today: “Investigation into MAL began four years ago and concluded that it had the capacity to mount an attack on a large scale”.
Yesterday’s counter-terrorism operation saw all those arrested cited for “the practice of crimes related to the group and terrorist activities, discrimination and incitement to hatred and violence and detention of an illegal weapon”.
Police have said other arrests could well follow, and that these could very possibly include the involvement of further members of the country’s ‘security forces’.
As Manuela Santos admitted at yesterday’s press conference the sheer quantity of illegal weapons, including explosives, rounded up at the addresses where searches took place was ‘surprising’.
MAL (also translating into Portuguese for ‘BAD’) was created in 2018 by militants of the extreme right who were “disappointed by the passivity of PNR (which later rechristened as Ergue-te, a political party that has recently been told that unless it presents missing accounts for the last three years, it will be officially ‘extinguished’), and by the incapacity of Nova Ordem Social – the now defunct movement started by far right figure Mário Machado, currently serving jail time for hate speech.
According to CM, MAL came into being with the objective of becoming a political party, supported by an armed militia.
Investigators of the PJ have been ‘following’ MAL’s progress over the years, logging deliveries, packages sent through the postal system, and conversations between the principal leaders.
“There are also suspicions that the group buried 50-litre barrels in the forest area of Monsanto. It is not clear yet with what objective”, adds CM.
Source material: Correio da Manhã/ Lusa
