“Following the investigation process, a disciplinary procedure was opened, which is ongoing. The details of this procedure are confidential while it is being processed”, the IRN replied to Lusa.

Abramovich investigation

In January, the president of the IRN, Filomena Rosa, revealed that an inquiry had been opened into Abramovich's naturalisation process under the Sephardic Jewish law, estimating at the time that the inquiry would be completed in February and explaining that such an inquiry could give rise to a disciplinary process, which is now confirmed.

At the beginning of March, SIC had advanced that the IRN investigation had motivated the opening of a disciplinary process for “suspected breach of duties”, also not specifying how many employees and which categories would be involved in this process.

Arrests

The investigation into the Abramovich naturalisation process, which led to the arrest of the religious leader of the Jewish Community of Porto (CJP), Rabbi Daniel Litvak, involved carrying out searches and involves suspicions of several crimes, namely trafficking of influence, active corruption, document falsification, money laundering, qualified tax fraud and criminal association, indicated the Judiciary Police (PJ) and the Public Ministry (MP) in a joint statement.

According to the management of the CIP/CJP, one of its members was also indicted for the crimes of influence peddling, tax fraud, money laundering and forgery of documents.

Irregularities

In question are alleged irregularities committed in processes of granting Portuguese nationality to descendants of Sephardic Jews, which are under investigation. Sephardic Jews are originally from the Iberian Peninsula expelled from Portugal in the 16th century.

Between March 1, 2015 and December 31, 2021, 56,685 naturalisation processes were approved for descendants of Sephardic Jews of a total of 137,087 applications that were submitted to the services of the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN).

According to data sent to Lusa in February by the Ministry of Justice, only 300 cases were not approve during this period, thus leaving, according to data recorded at the end of last year, 80,102 pending requests.