A rabbi responsible for the certification that allowed Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and others to obtain Portuguese citizenship is not allowed to leave the country and must present himself to authorities when required, Lusa news agency said on Saturday.
Officers of the Judicial Police, the national criminal investigation agency, detained rabbi Daniel Litvak on Thursday as part of an ongoing public prosecutors inquiry into how Chelsea soccer club owner Abramovich was granted citizenship.
He was granted Portuguese citizenship last year based on a law offering naturalisation to descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula during the Mediaeval Inquisition.
Applicants’ genealogies are vetted by experts at one of Portugal’s Jewish communities in Lisbon or Porto. The Porto community, where Litvak is the rabbi, was responsible for Abramovich’s process.