“A mockery”. Taxi drivers shout and surround PSP at Lisbon airport
Two male lisbon airport taxi drivers, aged 38 and 44, were arrested by the Public Security Police (PSP) on the 26th at Lisbon’s Humberto Delgado Airport for resisting and coercing public authorities.
According to a statement released to Notícias ao Minuto, in the taxi rank at Humberto Delgado Airport, the PSP approached a driver who was waiting for customers “with the light switched on at fare 1 – daytime, with no customers inside the vehicle yet”.
“It was also observed that in the same vehicle, the taximeter was hidden, and it was realised that it was covered with a cover,” it said.
When the man was approached, he immediately accused the policeman of “persecution” because he said he was “not committing anything illegal”.
The passengers were told to move to another vehicle so that the PSP could identify the driver and the vehicle and fine him.
The second taxi driver, “when he realised that his colleague had been denied transport”, came to his defence and “made it impossible for the taxi rank to function normally”, saying that “he wasn’t charging because his colleague was right to do so”.
He then started calling other taxi drivers to join him and shouted: “This was a joke”.
The policeman found himself surrounded and “because there were no longer safe conditions” and “because the taxi drivers were intransigent and wanted to use hostility to coerce and prevent the policeman from acting legitimately”, the two drivers were arrested.
They were made defendants and given a statement of identity and residence, being notified to appear for a trial at the Local Criminal Court of Lisbon, Petty Crime Section, the note finally reveals.
