The person responsible for granting Portuguese citizenship to Sephardic descendants Daniel Litvak, rabbi of the Israeli Community of Porto (CIP), was arrested by the Portuguese Judiciary Police last Thursday (10), as he was preparing to travel to Israel. It was the religious who allowed the Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich to obtain Portuguese nationality in April last year.
Police authorities were at the CIP premises this Friday to interrogate other members of the body’s management. In 2015, the CIP was given powers to certify descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from Portugal at the end of the 15th century, such as the Comunidade Israelita de Lisboa.
The operation stems from an inquiry opened on January 19 by the Portuguese Attorney General’s Office, which is currently in the hands of the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DCIAP). The investigation began following an investigation published in December by Público, in which some of the contours of the process of granting nationality to the entrepreneur by CIP, of which he has been one of the main benefactors, were revealed.
In a statement, the PJ confirmed the operation, noting that “household and non-household” searches were carried out, namely the office of a lawyer, conducted by the National Anti-Corruption Unit. At stake are “crimes of influence peddling, active corruption, forgery of documents, money laundering, qualified tax fraud and criminal association”.
Following these searches, “vast documentation and other evidence was seized”, which will now be analyzed by the authorities. The PJ also added that Rabbi Daniel Litvak will attend a judicial interrogation to apply coercive measures. Also in a statement, the CIP reiterated the legality of certification processes for descendants of Sephardic Jews.
Law of 2013
In 2013, Parliament unanimously approved a revision of the Nationality Law that established the possibility of granting Portuguese nationality to descendants of Sephardic Jews expelled from Portugal. The possibility was consecrated on March 2, 2015.
To obtain nationality through naturalization, Abramovich saw his Sephardic ancestry being proven by the CIP’s Sephardic Certification Commission. The process was filed at the Conservatória dos Registos Centrais, in Lisbon, and at the Ministry of Justice — which is the one who has the power to grant nationality — in October 2020 and was completed on April 30, 2021, in a record time of six months. and a half, according to data collected in Público’s investigation.
From 2015, when the amendments to the Nationality Law came into force, until the end of last year, CIP and CIL certified 86,500 requests for nationality — with more than 32,000 having already been granted by the Ministry of Justice and being yet to analyze a few tens of thousands. Of the total requests, close to 90% were instructed by the Jewish community in Porto (76,500).
more demanding government
Contrary to the Spanish law —also aimed at historical reparation for the expulsion of Sephardic Jews, also at the end of the 15th century—, which came into force in October 2015 and ended in October 2019, Portuguese legislation extends indefinitely in time. The requirements presented by the two countries to candidates for nationality in this way were still quite different.
The Madrid authorities required, among other conditions, proof of the status of Sephardic Jew and a link to the country, proof to obtain a Spanish diploma as a foreign language, level A2, and another of constitutional and sociocultural knowledge, carried out through the Instituto Cervantes. .
A certificate issued by the president of the Permanent Commission of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain, a certificate issued by the representative of the Jewish community in the area of ​​residence of the person concerned and a certificate from the competent rabbinical authority legally recognized in the country of origin or residence were also required. applicant’s usual
None of this is necessary under Portuguese legislation, under which the candidate may never have been to national territory, not even to complete the naturalization process. But the government now wants to reinforce the requirements requested, in particular with regard to an effective connection to Portugal.
Residency requirements (as proposed in 2020 by the vice-president of the socialist bench Constança Urbano de Sousa) or knowledge of the language violate Article 7 of the Nationality Law. The text was proposed in 2013 by Maria de Belém Roseira, aunt of Francisco de Almeida Garrett, lawyer and member of the CIP board, and unanimously approved in Parliament.
To this end, in December it approved a decree-law in the Council of Ministers, which remains in the Presidency of the Republic awaiting promulgation or veto. Público questioned Belém about the reasons for the delay, but, until the publication of this text, it had not received a response.
