http://www.guardianunlimited.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3884306,00.html

Right-wing terrorists killed Portuguese PM in faked plane crash

Eduardo Goncalves, Lisbon

Observer

Sunday July 18, 1999

A little-known extreme right-wing terrorist group is being blamed for a series of bomb attacks on prominent Portuguese politicians, including the alleged assassination of former Prime Minister Francisco Sa Carneiro.

A leaked interim report from a parliamentary investigation team includes sworn testimony from former members of an underground network calling itself the Commandos for the Defence of Western Civilisation (Codeco) in which they name the man currently in charge of Portugal's border security as a leading member.

The witnesses also said that the murders of Sa Carneiro and his former Defence Minister, Amaro da Costa, were carried out to conceal evidence of secret arms deals by senior Portuguese army officers.

Sa Carneiro died in a mysterious plane crash in 1980, officially blamed on technical failure and pilot error. Elza Simoes and Carlos Miranda, who claim to have been part of the Codeco network, say that two international drug dealers with links to the arms trade made and planted a bomb on the premier's plane.

The new report reveals that forensic experts who analysed the exhumed bodies of the crash victims found metallic objects embedded in their bones by an explosion.

Jack Krane, an expert on IRA bombing campaigns, examined metal particles in the pilot's feet and compared them with X-rays of the bodies of the Prime Minister and his Defence Minister. Along with the veteran investigator of ETA terrorism, Conchero Caro, he concluded that only a bomb could have been responsible for the pattern in which the particles were scattered.

The evidence directly contradicts official claims that studies of the bodies had yielded no new evidence, and statements by the Attorney General that the alleged presence of explosives was the result of contaminated tools used to take laboratory samples.

Amaro da Costa, who served as Defence Minister under Carneiro, is said to have been targeted because he had uncovered evidence of a secret army slush fund rumoured to be used for arms deals.

Official investigators discovered that substantial sums were transferred to a current account shortly before da Costa's death. They have called for a full investigation into the illegal fund.

Although they were prevented by army officials from making copies of documents, the investigators discovered that the account, although supposedly intended for procurement of supplies for Portugal's colonial army, remained active until 1982, long after the country's military withdrawal from Africa. Da Costa is thought to have discovered its true purpose and was said to have been 'profoundly worried'.

The revelations are embarrassing Portugal's political establishment. Bomb experts and relatives of the victims have long claimed there has been a high-level campaign to conceal the truth. The bodies of Sa Carneiro and the other victims were secretly exhumed under armed guard and the wreckage of the plane is still held in a high-security hangar at Lisbon airport.

The suspicion that army officers have been involved in secret arms deals is likely to prove damaging. The Portuguese armed forces have held a respected and sometimes powerful position in the country's political system, after ending 50 years of dictatorship in 1974 and helping to install democracy. Families of the bereaved have launched a private prosecution against an army officer who they say was Codeco's commander-in-chief.

The scandal may also tarnish the popular view of Portugal's relatively peaceful transition to democracy with a bloodless coup in 1974 which brought Portugal's colonial empire and right-wing regime to an end. In sworn affidavits, Simoes and Miranda say that members of Codeco infiltrated centre-right political parties and were behind violent attacks on left-wing politicians.

In statements made independently of one another, both witnesses claimed they had been afraid to come forward before because they feared reprisals. They said a leading army officer, Lieutenant Colonel Lencastre Bernardo, was directly involved in bombing campaigns and had helped protect the two men who killed the PM.

Bernardo is now head of Portugal's border security agency. He refused to comment on the allegations, although a source close to him hinted that he would co-operate with any criminal investigation process instigated by the state's prosecution service.

Investigations in the wake of the arrest this year of General Pinochet may yet provide clues to the origins and tactics of groups such as Codeco. CIA documents have emerged which show that paramilitary right-wing groups in a number of Latin American and European countries, including Portugal, were working together in the late Seventies and early Eighties as part of a conspiracy called Operation Condor, with the aim of carrying out assassinations of leading politicians.