Three Israeli citizens, who arrived in Lisbon in the past two weeks to obtain Portuguese passports after undergoing a rigorous process to obtain them, were interrogated at the city's police station on suspicion that their passports were forged.
According to one of the Israelis, last week four plainclothes policemen came to his hotel and asked him to accompany them to the city's police station after searching his body. "They claimed that they were looking into the suspicion that the passport and citizenship I received were forged," G. explained in a conversation with his associates.
"They stripped me down as if I were a terrorist," he recounted. "It was an unpleasant feeling. I explained to them that I had received the passport legally and also presented them with a birth certificate, in order to prove that even before I arrived in Portugal I had registered with the Population Administration as a citizen."
G. was taken to the police station, where he called the contacts who handled his documents, who explained to the investigators that it was a mistake. After about two hours of examination, he was released and received an apology from the police.
As mentioned, G. is not the only one. About two weeks ago, two other Israelis were detained for questioning. "They arrived at their hotel in the center of Lisbon and asked to conduct a search of their bodies on suspicion that their passports were forged," a source familiar with the details of the affair revealed, "They were taken for interrogation and released after Israeli contacts who operate according to the law in the country proved to the police that they were wrong and that the passports and citizenship they received were legal and according to the accepted procedures. But that doesn't change the fact that they have suffered mental anguish. It's not pleasant to get into a situation like this."
* Mako contributed to this article.
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