Prison break
Two men are back behind bars following an escape using a rope from Alcoentre jail (Lisbon district), aided by the fact that the watchtower was unmanned. The men were caught after 12 hours. Prison guards union leader Frederico Morais has warned that future jailbreaks will continue – some of them ending with inmates succeeding in ‘getting away with it’ – because of “systemic failures” and a lack of political/ administrative will.
Shady business
Two businessmen ostensibly running a licensed business producing medicinal cannabis in Mação have been arrested this week on suspicion of having used their legal front to introduce “thousands of kilos of the drug into illicit circuits on national territory”. Operation Ortiga, mounted by the anti-trafficking unit of Portugal’s PJ judicial police, seized two tons of cannabis from the Mação premises. The men arrested have been described as British and Italian.
Missing children
Two children have been reported missing this morning from the river beach of Areinho, in Vila Nova de Gais. The alert was sounded just before 11am. Authorities are at the scene. UPDATE: Both have been found, alive and well.
Electronic blunder
Authorities in Custoias prison (Porto district) allowed an inmate condemned for domestic violence to leave the premises before placement of the electronic tag that had been ordered to enable his early release. Reports have been unable to explain why this situation was allowed to happen. The blunder was fairly quickly rectified – but there has been no statement by prison services as to why such a potentially dangerous lapse took place.
TAP sale
The ‘reprivatisation’ of flagship airline TAP has been promised by finance minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento within “the next few weeks”. This sale – which looks like being less than 50% of the company – has been promised for years, in which the financial penalties affecting TAP (namely as a result of legal decisions) have increased substantially. Various international airlines are understood to be interested, as well as a ‘pact’ of Portuguese investors.
Legal manoeuvres
Former Socialist prime minister José Sócrates has already lodged more than 100 appeals to try and evade his trial for corruption. Even this week, as the trial in which he faces 22 charges of corruption, money laundering and tax fraud opened in Lisbon’, Mr Sócrates put in a new appeal to the Court of Justice of the European Union claiming a written error in the indictment that violates European laws.
Vulnerable families
Families relying on food support from the Portuguese Red Cross increased in number last year by 60% compared to 2023. Says the charity, over 95,000 families needed help with food in 2024. This is 35,200 more than sought support the year before. Thus the new Red Cross ‘food collection drive’ – the second so far this year – that starts on Thursday in 281 supermarkets and runs until July 26.
Cod quota
The Council of the European Union (EU) has approved a fisheries agreement with Canada that doubles Portugal’s cod quota (to 495 tonnes) after 32 years. The time was taken to allow cod stocks in Canadian and Newfoundland waters to ‘recover’ after their collapse from overfishing. The Portuguese distant trawl fleet operates ‘a limited number of vessels’ in these far-flung waters, while the national market consumes a great deal of cod.
