Between religious publications, radical messages and videos of violence shared online, the Public Ministry (MP) paints a portrait of a path of radicalization that began in a UK prison and culminated in an indictment for terrorism crimes in Portugal.
Born in 1993 in Funchal, Luís R. moved to London as a child, where he lived with his mother and sister. He grew up in a Christian family context, with parents linked to Jehovah’s Witnesses.
His adolescence, according to the indictment to which DN had access, was marked by the consumption of narcotics from the age of 16 and, shortly afterwards, by the sale of these substances, a path that would eventually land him in jail in the United Kingdom.
He was arrested in 2014, aged 19, and sentenced to two years in prison for drug trafficking. In addition to the sentence, the British court imposed an additional sanction of expulsion and ban on entering the country for ten years, a period that ends in May 2026.
It is during the period of imprisonment, between 2014 and 2016, that the prosecution places his conversion to Islam, after contact with other prisoners who allegedly provided him with a Quran in English.
Conversion to Islam and the first signs of radicalization
From then on, according to the MP, he began to adopt strict religious practices, such as daily prayers and Ramadan fasting, and changed his appearance, growing a beard.
He also adopted the name Bilal. The accusation states that, in different prison establishments, he came into contact with prisoners associated with Salafist-jihadist currents and began to become interested in religious content with a more radical reading.
In one of the prisons, he would have learned the Arabic alphabet and some expressions in the language, deepening his religious study. The indictment states that, in The Verne’s prison, he had access to an iPhone that had been left for him by another prisoner, through which he carried out internet research and consulted pages of radical Islamic preachers.
That cell phone would later be seized in a cell search. Confronted with the research history, he stated that carrying out jihad was a religious duty, under penalty of being considered a hypocrite in the face of faith.
The MP maintains that, during this period, Luís R. began to defend a literal reading of sharia, including corporal punishments for certain crimes and a conservative view of the role of women in society.
The accusation also refers to manifestations of hostility against those considered to be opponents of Muslims. It is in this context that he places his adherence to a Salafist-jihadist current and his ideological approach to the positions disseminated by the self-proclaimed Islamic State.
The return to Madeira and online radicalization
Expelled from the United Kingdom in May 2016 and sent to Madeira, he returned to Portugal with external signs of Islamic religious practice, such as wearing a long beard and taqiyah. According to the accusation, he had an extremist religious vision, marked by intolerance towards other beliefs and the defense of the restoration of a caliphate.
Without face-to-face links with radicalized circles, the prosecution maintains that the defendant found the main space to affirm his convictions on the internet.
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