Rabat – Portuguese authorities have announced today that the stabbing at the Islamic Center in Lisbon on March 28 was not a terrorist attack.
The French news agency AFP quoted Police Chief Luis Neves as saying that “there is no indication that this is a terrorist attack.”
The authorities said they suspect the attacker was suffering from a severe mental illness, but added that is only something that “a psychiatric evaluation can determine.”
The inquiry into yesterday’s events is still ongoing.
The fatal attack left two women dead and injured many others. The man who targeted people at the Islamic Center was a refugee from Afghanistan.
Witnesses have come forward and have helped paint a picture of the man’s life before he committed the attack.
As the man was attending a language class at the Ismaili Center yesterday, he took a phone call after which his behavior drastically changed, witnesses told AFP. He proceeded to attack the language teacher and two women who worked at the center. The assailant was then shot in the leg by the police and taken to hospital.
Investigations have revealed the attacker’s journey from Afghanistan to Greece, which is where his wife died in a fire. A father of three, the man and his young children arrived in Portugal in 2021 and were planning to travel to Germany, according to Neves, the police chief.
Portugal’s Minister of Internal Administration Jose Luis Carneiro expressed yesterday his condolences to the families affected by the incident.
The Ismaili Center is a space for Shia Imami Muslims, also called Ismailis.
