Azerbaijani man arrested in Portugal due to a confusion between Pomegranate and Grenade was later released - FACTLY
Sai Krishna Muthyanolla
November 9, 2023
A video recently circulating on social media claimed that an Azerbaijani man with an Israeli passport attempted to blow up a restaurant in Lisbon, Portugal. This fact-check article aims to reveal the truth behind these allegations.
Claim: A Muslim man from Azerbaijan holding an Israeli passport tried to blow himself up at a restaurant in Lisbon, Portugal with a grenade.
Fact: An Azerbaijani tourist, using a translation app, accidentally translated “pomegranate juice” to “grenade” in Portuguese, leading to confusion and him being briefly detained by police. and Hence, the claim made in the post is False.
We conducted a reverse image search with keyframes from the video to uncover the facts behind this viral video. This led us to several news reports (here, here, and here) featuring similar screenshots from the video. Interestingly, the details in these reports contradicted the claims in the viral post.
According to these reports, a tourist from Azerbaijan who spoke Russian attempted to order pomegranate juice at a restaurant in Lisbon, Portugal. He used a translation app to communicate his order, which unfortunately translated his request in Portuguese to “grenade”. This misunderstanding led to the man being briefly handcuffed by the police. However, upon realising there were no weapons or threats involved, the police released the man.
Further research led us to more news articles (here and here) that confirmed the story. The video making rounds on social media misrepresents an innocent tourist’s translation mishap as a thwarted bombing attempt.
To sum up, the video claimed to show an attempted bombing in Lisbon, Portugal, is not an act of terrorism but rather a translation blunder made by a harmless tourist.