LISBON, Portugal
Billionaire Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich has become a Portuguese citizen, adding the European Union member country’s passport to his Russian and Israeli ones.
A
spokesperson for Abramovich confirmed a report by Portuguese newspaper Publico
on Saturday which cited justice ministry documents as saying the Russian-born
businessman had been granted Portuguese citizenship on April 30.
Abramovich’s
case was based on a Portuguese law offering naturalisation to descendents of
Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula during the medieval
Inquisition, the newspaper said.
Thousands
of Israeli Jews have been granted Portuguese citizenship since the law was
passed in 2015. The number of such applications has risen in Portugal since a
similar citizenship offer to Sephardic Jews by Spain ended in 2019.
Applicants’
genealogies are vetted by experts who also look for evidence of interest in
Sephardi culture.
Abramovich
has donated money to projects honoring the legacy of Portuguese Sephardic Jews
in the German city of Hamburg, according to the Jewish Community of Porto’s
information portal Mazal.
There
is little known history of Sephardic Jews in Russia though Abramovich is a
common surname of Ashkenazi Jewish origin.
Abramovich
made his fortune, now estimated to be worth $14.3 billion according to Forbes,
in Russia’s oil industry in the 1990s and bought Chelsea Football Club in 2003.
He served as a regional governor in Russia from 2000 to 2008 and took Israeli
citizenship in 2018.
Around
300,000 Jews lived in Spain when, in 1492, monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand
ordered them and the country’s Muslims to convert to Catholicism or leave. Tens
of thousands fled to Portugal, only to be persecuted there or expelled in 1496.
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