LISBON, May 5 (Reuters) – Portuguese law enforcement officials investigating cases of alleged torture at two central Lisbon precincts detained 15 police officers on Tuesday, raising the total number of those charged or arrested to 25, police and prosecutors said.
In January, prosecutors charged two officers with torturing vagrants and migrants and then sharing images of their acts in an online chat with dozens of other officers, triggering a broader inquiry.
The two are awaiting trial, accused of torture, acts of cruelty and abuse of power, according to the indictment. One also faces charges of rape, robbery and forgery.
Another seven people were detained in March.
Police confirmed Tuesday’s detentions that also included one civilian but would not say whether those held were suspected of carrying out torture themselves or of failing to report abuse they had witnessed in person or in shared videos.
Prosecutors have said the abuse was reported from within the police as well as by some of the victims, but they have cited only a handful of such testimonies, saying most officers who allegedly knew of the torture stayed silent.
Rights groups such as Amnesty International have long expressed concerns about police brutality in Portugal.
While it welcomed the investigation, Amnesty said the sharing of images and messages about their acts in chats and social media in this particular case showed “an enormous sense of impunity” among the officers.
(Reporting by Andrei Khalip, editing by Aislinn Laing and Sanjeev Miglani)
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