The parents of the 31-year-old man who is accused of three murders in the attacks in Nottingham, UK, last Tuesday, have connections to Madeira.
According to the Daily Telegraph, the couple worked on the island of Madeira and obtained Portuguese nationality in 2006.
They will have later moved to the UK with their three children and the suspect will have resident status as a European citizen.
The charges formalized today are related to the death of University of Nottingham Barnaby students Philip John Webber and Grace Sashi O’Malley-Kumar, both 19 years old, and Ian Robert Coates, 65 years old, all stabbed in the early hours of Tuesday in Nottingham.
The three counts of attempted murder concern three other people who were hit by a car, one of whom remains in hospital in serious condition.
Nottinghamshire Police Chief Kate Meynell said the allegations “are a significant development and result from our exhaustive investigation into these horrific incidents” in the English city, about 200 kilometers north of London.
“We are well aware of the deep emotion being felt around these tragic events and the high level of interest not only in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire but across the country,” he said in a statement.
However, it warned that “posting harmful information on the internet about an ongoing case may constitute contempt of court and, in the most serious cases, may result in a failure of a trial”.
Today, speaking to journalists, the Portuguese Minister of Foreign Affairs, João Gomes Cravinho, said he was in contact with the British authorities.
“We recently discovered, this morning, that apparently the suspect has Portuguese nationality. We are investigating the matter, but we will be in close contact with the British authorities in this regard”, he underlined.