Porto's Jewish community has accused the Portuguese government of fabricating the "Abramovich Scandal", which led to the arrest of the community's rabbi under charges of corruption in 2022, the charges against the community were found to be "based on nothing" the same year.
The scandal involved an allegedly dubious certification of Roman Abramovich's Portuguese Sephardic ancestry, which under Portuguese law would have granted him citizenship.
Abramovich was granted Portuguese citizenship in 2021.
The community asserts that Portugal's government retroactively canceled the certification due to Abramovich's association with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and not due to the claimed falsification of documents by the community. In spite of the cancelation of his certification, he still holds Portuguese citizenship.
The Portuguese government claims that the community falsified documents relating to Abramovich's ancestry.
The case against the community was dismissed in September 2022 by the Lisbon Court of Appeals, saying that the police and the State Prosecutor’s Office acted “based on nothing” and dismissed all charges and allegations against the community.
The community claims that the decision to grant citizenship is only within the power of the Portuguese government and the Jewish community can only provide certification of the ancestry requirements, which all previous governments had upheld.
The community charges that any issues with the application should have been raised at the time and that any decision to grant Portuguese citizenship lies solely with the Portuguese government.
As a result of the scandal, the community has stopped cooperating with the Portuguese government on citizenship matters.
Clearing the Jewish community's name
In order to clear their name, the community has released an extensive and detailed report showing the evidence that the Portuguese government concocted a scandal where there was none.
First, the community shows the documents that prove that Abramovich had sufficient Sephardic ancestry to qualify. This was done via family names, several of Abramovich's ancestors have family names that the Portuguese government certified as being of Portuguese Sephardic ancestry, including Abramovich, Leiba/Leiva (his great-grandfather), Rosa (great-grandmother), Leibovich (grandfather), and Berkover (grandmother).
They claim that many of these families originate from Peter the Great's invitation to the Portuguese Sephardic community in Hamburg to migrate to Russia in the 17th Century. The community provides several documents linking Abramovich's ancestors to these invitees.
The community also counters claims that Abramovich paid money directly to the community to facilitate his certification, showing that they only received 250 €, providing the documentation that it was declared to the Portuguese government at the time.
Discussing the citizenship process the community said, "In accordance with the law, it falls to the Community to issue its informed opinion as to someone’s Portuguese Sephardic origin. Similarly, it falls to the Government to grant or deny nationality to said person, using its discretionary power."
The community then charged that the Portuguese government lied about the community's ability to grant citizenship saying, "What the Government cannot do is divulge to society that the Community (whether of Oporto, Lisbon or any other) has the power to grant nationality through its certificates even if these are fake. That is a shameful falsification of the truth."
"A law aimed at historical reparation has itself become a mechanism for antisemitic persecution involvingthe Government and all the major powers of society."
The community asserts that the government's attempts to blame the community were part of an effort to shift blame from the government to the community after the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 made Abramovich's citizenship less appealing.
The community claims that this falsification was done in collaboration with the Portuguese media, who are "essentially in the hands of small bankrupt economic groups, [which] is greatly dependent on the State."
The community believes that this fabrication is part of the long-held antisemitic and anti-Jewish beliefs of the Portuguese left wing that originate in Soviet-style antisemitism.
They end their documentation with "To believe that a Russian Jew has a 100% Russian background is to ignore the history of a people of forced migrants who roamed from country to country and married exclusively among their number."