BREAKING news at 11am today: GNR police announce recapture of Algerian, in a street in Lagoa, Algarve…
Abdelkader Eddouh lived with British girlfriend in Alvor
The latest dismal story of authorities’ inability to hold on to prisoners has opened a new can of worms: according to Correio da Manhã this morning, the Algerian who burst out of police custody on the way to an extradition hearing in Lisbon yesterday was able to renew his Portuguese residency when there was already an international arrest warrant out in his name.
At a moment when a number of Portugal’s institutions are looking ‘worse for wear’ in terms of performance, questions now will be being asked as to how a man with an international arrest warrant to his name could be considered worthy of a residency renewal in this country.
But there may be even more questions being asked as Addelkader Eddouh remains missing since his dramatic escape yesterday.
Why, for example, did German police emit an international arrest warrant for him in the first place?
CM does not appear to have the answer. The paper simply alludes to him having been under arrest in Germany “in circumstances still to clarify” at which point he set fire to “furniture in the police station” and appears to have then ‘escaped’.
This was all in 2023. German authorities then issued the international warrant for his arrest, and he, it seems, returned to Portugal (his residency was initially authorised in 2022), where he was living with a British girlfriend in Alvor, Algarve.
That residency was renewed in May this year (with the arrest warrant still firmly in place). As to what Eddouh was doing for work in this country, we have not yet been told.
But on Monday this week (according to CM; other sources have cited Sunday), Eddouh was in the departures lounge of Lisbon Airport (again, we are not told where he was intending to fly to) when the Schengen system set off some form of ‘alarm’ against his passport.
He was promptly arrested, taken into custody and then driven to Lisbon’s Court of Appeal on Tuesday morning, bright and early, in order for a judge to decide the next steps towards extradition.
Right now, no one appears to know where Eddouh is. He appears to have outwitted his pursuers, at great speed, managing at the same time to get his hands free of his handcuffs.
He was last seen in the Chiado (shopping) district, into which he will have been able to blend into crowds with relative ease.
PSP police have announced that “an inquiry has been opened to establish the reasons for the escape of Abdelkader Eddouh”. It has also alerted all other national police forces which are still searching today.
The Minister for Interior Administration meantime has been ignoring questions on how she feels about being in charge of an institution that has ‘lost’ prisoners twice in a matter of a couple of months.
