Portugal's Interior Minister Drives a Car the Judicial Police Seized in a Criminal Case, and Former Ministers Say They Never Drove at All

Portugal's interior minister, Luís Neves, is driving a Volkswagen Golf GTD that the Judicial Police seized in a criminal case, the same car he used when he ran the force. He drives it himself, without a driver or a close-protection detail, and he uses it in his private life too.

The detail was reported on Thursday by TVI, CNN Portugal and Nascer do Sol. The vehicle was transferred from the PJ to the Ministry of Internal Administration under a comodato, a free loan agreement, signed in February, the month Neves took office as minister.

The minister's explanation

Neves asked the PJ's interim national directorate for the car when he was sworn in, and defends the arrangement on grounds of speed and cost.

"This solution allows, in urgent situations, which are permanent in this area of government, a faster and more autonomous response," he told the reporting outlets. "There have already been cases, notably in Civil Protection and at the airport, that required urgent meetings to be convened. Without this possibility, whenever an emergency arose while I was at home, it would be necessary to call drivers and security officers, with greater delay and additional costs to the public purse."

The PJ said that "as has happened with other public administration bodies, such vehicles were transferred under a temporary comodato regime, with the relevant documentation signed" by the officer competent to do so.

The security rule it appears to break

The reporting raises a second issue that is harder to answer with a cost argument. On entering government, Neves was assigned a public threat level of grade 3 on a scale of 0 to 5 by the Serviço de Informações de Segurança. Driving his own service car appears to breach the protocol attached to that assessment.

Former interior ministers contacted by the same outlets said they had never driven service vehicles themselves, precisely because of the security rules the SIS lays down. The protocol required them to travel in the back seat, behind the front passenger.

Neves is unmoved. "All my life I have lived under threat. It is a burden of the way I have always exercised my duties, notably by assuming operational responsibility directly, which will continue while I am minister of internal administration," he said.

Four cars, one minister

The Golf has not replaced the ministerial fleet. Neves still has the ministry's cars, drivers and security officers at his disposal, and said he has been transported in three vehicles, allowing that substitutions are sometimes necessary. The reporters say they filmed him using four different service vehicles: the Golf GTD, two BMWs and a Mercedes on which the ministry pays annual renting of €26,000.

On one working day, the journalists recorded the minister being driven home in one of the ministry's BMWs; hours later, a member of his security team delivered the Golf GTD to his door. Neves disputes the pattern rather than the incident: "I do not confirm that this happened repeatedly. I drive the vehicle myself."

What this means for you

• This is about accountability, not policy. Nothing here changes any rule that affects residents directly, but it does bear on the credibility of the minister who oversees the PSP, the GNR and the immigration and borders unit.
• It lands on an accumulating file. Neves already faces a criminal inquiry over a missing drug-case trailer and a Court of Auditors trial over his years running the Judicial Police.
• Seized assets are the underlying question. Property held in an open criminal case is meant to be preserved as evidence or for eventual forfeiture, not put into general service use.
• Expect parliamentary questions. Opposition parties have already used the earlier cases to press for the minister's appearance before committee.

The government has stood by Neves through two prior controversies this summer. Whether a car does what a missing trailer and a spending trial could not is now a political question rather than a legal one.