Getty ImagesFifteen police officers, including two police chiefs, are being held as an investigation spreads into alleged violence towards vulnerable victims at two police stations in Lisbon, reports say.
In January, two officers in their 20s were charged with torture, rape and abuse of power. The incidents were allegedly filmed and shared in WhatsApp groups involving dozens of other officers.
Another seven officers were detained in March and on Tuesday one civilian and 15 more officers were taken in. Two of them are police chiefs, police sources have told Portuguese media.
It is not clear if the new detainees are suspected of taking part in the abuse or of failing to report it.
The allegations are linked to the Rato and Bairro Alto police stations in Lisbon in 2024 and 2025, with the victims said to have been drug addicts, homeless people and immigrants.
The Portugese Home Affairs Minister Luís Neves stressed there was no indication that any other police stations had been involved, but added that it pointed to a complacency and acceptance of bad behaviour.
"These are particularly serious crimes," he told Portuguese TV on Wednesday.
"It's one thing for someone who had access to the images and remained silent, and quite another for someone who took part in the violence."
Right's group Amnesty International has been vocal about police brutality in Portugal and earlier this year warned of an "enormous sense of impunity" among police officers.
It pointed out that the vulnerability of the victims meant they were too afraid to file a complaint.
Portugal's National Union of Police Officers has described the allegations of torture as "disturbing" and called for increased rigour in the selection process of officers.
The head of Portugal's Public Security Police (PSP), Luís Carrilho, said earlier this week that they enforced a "zero-tolerance police towards cases of misconduct", and vowed that the country could "continue to trust the police".
