Rebel Leader Old Enemy Of Salazar

Press, Volume C, Issue 29421, 25 January 1961, Page 13

Rebel Leader Old Enemy Of Salazar

LONDON, January 24. Captain Henrique Galvao, of the rebels who took over the Portuguese liner Santa Maria in the Caribbean, is an old critic of Dr. Antonio Salazar’s regime. He fell foul of the Portuguese leader in 1947 when, as a member of the National Assembly. he was asked by the Government to report on conditions in Portuguese Angola. His report was unfavourable. In 1951 he supported the Opposition candidate for the Presidency and shortly afterwards was arrested on the ground that he had been organising a coup d’etat. The former Army captain was sentenced by a military tribunal in December, 1952, to three years' imprisonment for plotting the overthrow of the regime. On the expiry of this sen-

tence, Captain Galvao was held in preventive imprisonment for subversive activities alleged to have been carried out during his imprisonment. He went on trial again early in 1958, facing 13 charges—some of which appeared to be based on his 1947 report on conditions in Angola. It was said after the secret trial that the charges included writing a pamphlet inciting rebellion and allegations that he had defamed the President. Prime Minister and other Portuguese leaders. His appeal against a 16-year sentence was unsuccessful, but later he evaded three security policemen and escaped from the Lisbon Hospital. Nearly a month after his escape he was granted amnesty by the Argentine Embassy, and on May 13. 1959, he left Lisbon by air for Argentina.