Inquiry into alleged assassination
- Written by Paul Rees
Parliamentarians are demanding yet another inquiry into the death of former Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro and his defence minister Adelino Amaro da Costa in what has become Portugal's longest running political mystery.
On 4 December 1980, the two politicians died as they flew from Lisbon airport en route to Oporto and a presidential election rally. Their light plane lost altitude shortly after take-off, sheared a wing and crashed. The disaster was blamed on technical failure and pilot error, but many Portuguese remain convinced the plane was deliberately blown up. Accidental death was the original official explanation.
Sá Carneiro, who left a wife and five children, helped found the Popular Democratic Party, which later became the Social Democratic Party (PSD). He had been prime minister for only eleven months when he boarded the twin-engine Cessna C-421.
Eye-witnesses of thirty years ago said they saw pieces falling from the plane moments after take off. The strongest conspiracy theory suggests that Sá Carneiro and da Costa were the victims of an assassination plot connected to an arms-for-hostages deal and a rigged US presidential election.
The crash occurred the year after the revolution in Iran that brought Ayatollah Khomeini to power. Fifty-two Americans were taken hostage when youthful Islamists stormed the US Embassy in Tehran in November 1979. The hostages were held for 444 days from November 4, 1979 to January 20, 1981. Following the spectacular failure of a US military rescue operation with eight US servicemen and one Iranian civilian dead, President Jimmy Carter sought diplomatic rather than military solutions.
Conspiracy theorists believe da Costa had information that senior Portuguese army officers were covertly shipping arms to Iran as part of a plot by US Republicans to damage Carter's re-election campaign during this time.
Ronald Reagan and his vice-presidential candidate, George Bush Sr, were alleged to have struck a secret deal with the Iranian leadership to delay the release of the hostages until after the election in order to give them an electoral advantage over Carter.
It is thought that da Costa was targeted because he had evidence of a Portuguese army slush fund being used for arms deals. It is claimed that he was killed to destroy evidence of illegal arms shipments through Portugal, which he had determined to stop.
Experts on IRA and ETA bombs have been among those suggesting a high-level campaign to conceal the truth.
After thirty years and eight commissions of inquiry, Portuguese parliamentarians of all parties are now being pushed to demand a new inquiry finally to establish the truth.
