The Portuguese Government has appointed Luís António Trindade Nunes das Neves, the outgoing head of the country's Judicial Police (PJ), to be Portugal Security Minister. The appointment, confirmed by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, marks a decisive pivot in how Lisbon plans to handle everything in the new era.
Neves, 60, fills the vacuum left by Maria Lúcia Amaral, who resigned earlier that month after sustained criticism of her handling of Storm Kristin—a weather event that exposed systemic weaknesses in Portugal's emergency response architecture.
Close to the political circles of the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party, Neves is a native of Odemira, where he is married, and now assumes a ministerial mission that, while seemingly better than his previous one, is much more exposed than that of police director.
Today, the senior operational team that led the illegal raid on the Porto synagogue in 2022 has definitively disbanded. The failed "Operation Porta Aberta" was composed by Luís Neves (National Director of the Judicial Police), Lucília Gago (Attorney General), and Albano Pinto (Director of the DCIAP). They all have new lives now, as do Francisca Van Dunem (then Minister of Justice), Augusto Santos Silva (then Minister of Foreign Affairs), and António Costa (then Prime Minister).
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe.The mainland is bordered by Spain to the north and east, with Madeira and the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean. It features the westernmost point in continental Europe.
