Designer charged with ten terrorist crimes after throwing Molotov cocktail at Life March in Lisbon
Nelson Vassalo prepared a Molotov cocktail at home and threw it at pro-life protesters near the Assembly of the Republic. The Public Ministry accuses him of ten terrorist offences.
Designer prepared Molotov cocktail at home and attacked pro-life protesters near Parliament
On the morning of 21 March, Nelson Vassalo went to a petrol station with a plastic canister and claimed the fuel was for a motorcycle he did not own. The 1.02 litres cost him two euros.
Back at home, he poured the petrol into a glass bottle which he sealed with an inflammable cloth, storing it in a tote bag together with a lighter. He changed into a black hooded jacket and prepared himself for the Life March — where he intended to use the device. According to the indictment to which observador.pt had access, the flame "went out before spreading to the petrol for reasons beyond the accused's control".
The Public Ministry maintains that had the Molotov cocktail detonated, it would have caused "serious injuries or even death to people struck or exposed to its action". The motivation, according to prosecutor Cláudia Porto of the Central Department for Criminal Investigation and Action (DCIAP), was hatred: the victims were part of what he referred to as "rotten bourgeoisie, children of the elites of the systems or rich kids, the most favoured at birth", which Vassalo associated with the conservative right, capitalists and property owners whom he hated.
Nelson Vassalo was arrested and initially released, but was remanded in custody less than a month after the attack. The Public Ministry accuses him of ten terrorist offences.
Radicalisation began in 2021
The investigation concluded that Vassalo's radicalisation, a graphic designer and activist linked to the Okupa Movement and housing issues, began in 2021. On his computer, authorities found an urban guerrilla manual which classified Molotov cocktails as "essential" for terrorist operations.
In messages exchanged with friends and family, he mentioned these devices for the first time four years before the attack. In 2022, in a message exchange before a protest, he responded to a friend: "Bring the Molotovs." According to the Public Ministry, these contacts "strongly fed and validated his extremism".
The Public Ministry describes the operation as motivated "solely by the conviction of far-left political-ideological belief, aiming at the struggle for violent armed political action, through the use of fire, deliberately and exclusively against those protesters whom he hated".
Eight minutes studying the crowd
On the day of the attack, Vassalo initially participated in the "It No Longer Works!" demonstration, organised by movements defending the right to housing, where he remained until 17:28. He then cycled to Calçada da Estrela, arriving less than 15 minutes later.
According to the Public Ministry, he sat on a wall beside a cypress tree for eight minutes. He studied the crowd of approximately 390 people who, in the words of the indictment, "defended what they understood to be the dignity of human life from conception until natural death, protesting against practices such as abortion, euthanasia and medically assisted suicide". Those present included adults, young people, children and babies.
He covered his face with his collar, lit the bag impregnated with petrol and threw the device. A protester noticed the gesture and ran towards him, but was stopped by another person. The bag travelled approximately ten metres in the direction of at least eight protesters, standing three metres from the stairs of the Assembly of the Republic.
"At that moment, the accused reaffirmed his intention to frighten them, to impose, by force and by terror, his convictions and his ideology", the Public Ministry's indictment states.
Four-month-old baby and women drenched in petrol
The Molotov cocktail did not explode because it struck the arm of a protester — who was preparing to light a cigarette — and the back of another, who turned to protect the four-month-old baby she was holding. The bottle did not break, but left both women drenched in fuel: one of them had petrol dripping from her back and hair.
Seconds later, Vassalo was tackled and kicked by a protester. The PSP arrested him shortly afterwards. When evaluated at hospital, he showed no psychopathological alterations.
Humble origins as a motor for class hatred
The indictment traces the origin of Vassalo's hatred of the so-called "rotten bourgeoisie" to his perception that his family background, "marked by limited economic resources", had forced him to "face greater difficulties and make a greater effort than people from more favoured backgrounds". It was in higher education, which he attended through study grants, that he most "became aware that he was poor" in comparison with other students, which fed a "growing feeling of outrage at the injustice of socioeconomic inequalities".
A PS member since 2024 — subsequently suspended from the party — Vassalo wrote a manifesto that same year in which he defined himself as a "convinced social-[democrat]". The defence contests the "ideological" motivation described by the Public Ministry and asserts that the accused claims he intended to hit the Parliament's staircase, not the people.
Source: Google News PT