Two people were killed in a knife attack on a Muslim center in Lisbon on Tuesday, March 28, according to Portuguese police, who neutralized the attacker with a firearm. “The attack left several people injured and at the moment two dead,” police said in a statement, adding that the alleged perpetrator of the attack was arrested after being injured.
The man who committed the attack with “a large knife” was hospitalized at a hospital in the Portuguese capital, authorities added. The attack happened near the Ismaili Center in Lisbon. This community of Ismaili Shia Muslims established their world headquarters in Lisbon and their spiritual leader, the Aga Khan, obtained Portuguese citizenship in 2019.
Unconfirmed terror hypothesis
The Ismaili Muslims, a Shia community of fifteen million people spread across some thirty countries, have around 7,000 members in Portugal.
“I express my solidarity and condolences to the victims and the Ismaili community,” Portuguese Prime Minister Antonio Costa told the press, adding that it is “premature to interpret the motives behind this criminal act.”
The hypothesis of a terrorist attack mentioned by the local media was therefore not confirmed at this time. The last attack on Portuguese soil dates back to July 27, 1983, when an armed group of five Armenians attacked the Turkish embassy in Lisbon, killing two people. The attackers were killed in the attack.