António Tereso

He was born in Alcobaça on 16 November 1927 and joined Carris in 1951.⁴ A driver for the company and a PCP activist, he was arrested on 27 February 1959 for his part in the struggle of the Carris workers.⁵

With a knowledge of mechanics, he was imprisoned in Caxias when José Magro, a party leader with long years in jail behind him, gave him the task of studying the possibilities of escape. To do so he had to pass himself off as a “rachado” (turncoat) — to pretend he had gone over to the jailers’ side — and put up with the contempt of his comrades. He resisted, but accepted.¹ He kept it up for 19 months, Domingos Abrantes recalled in 2021, paying tribute to him as a hero of the anti-fascist resistance.²

He won the trust of the guards and the prison management and, with it, a freedom of movement rare for a prisoner. That is how he found Salazar’s armoured car in the garage, a 1937 Chrysler Imperial, whose repair was entrusted to him.¹³ He was about to be released, and his comrades, already sentenced, were to be transferred to Peniche: he had to get the car running, make it a familiar sight in the prison and work out how to bring it into the inner moat, the only place the other prisoners had access to. He also sabotaged the other cars, to prevent a chase.¹

On the morning of 4 December 1961 he reversed the Chrysler through the tunnel into the inner moat of the North Redoubt, where the prisoners were pretending to play football during exercise time. At the shout of “Goal!” (Golo!), given by José Magro, seven prisoners got into the car, which smashed through the outer gate and left the prison under fire from the GNR.³¹ Escaping with him were António Gervásio, Domingos Abrantes, Francisco Miguel, Guilherme Costa Carvalho, Ilídio Esteves, José Magro and Rolando Verdial.²

He died on 7 January 2017, aged 89.⁶⁵