View source for Chelsea Owner Abramovich Gets Portuguese Citizenship

<br>By Andrei Khalip<br> <br>LISBON, Dec 18 (Reuters) - Billionaire Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich has become a Portuguese citizen,  [https://nationturk.com/2020/06/08/visa/ lawyer turkey] adding the European Union member country's passport to his Russian and Israeli ones.<br> <br>A spokesperson for Abramovich confirmed a report by Portuguese newspaper Publico on Saturday which cited justice ministry documents as saying the Russian-born businessman had been granted Portuguese citizenship on April 30.<br> <br>Abramovich's case was based on a Portuguese law offering naturalisation to descendents of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from the Iberian peninsula during the medieval Inquisition, the newspaper said.<br> <br>Thousands of Israeli Jews have been granted Portuguese citizenship since the law was passed in 2015.<br><br>The number of such applications has risen in Portugal since a similar citizenship offer to [https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Sephardic Sephardic] Jews by Spain ended in 2019.<br> <br>Applicants' genealogies are vetted by experts who also look for evidence of interest in Sephardi culture.<br> <br>[https://www.wired.com/search/?q=Abramovich Abramovich] has donated money to projects honoring the legacy of Portuguese Sephardic Jews in the German city of Hamburg, according to the Jewish Community of Porto's information portal Mazal.<br> <br>There is little known history of Sephardic Jews in Russia though Abramovich is a common surname of Ashkenazi Jewish origin.<br> <br>Abramovich made his fortune, now estimated to be worth $14.3 billion according to Forbes, in Russia's oil industry in the 1990s and bought Chelsea Football Club in 2003.<br><br>He served as a regional governor in Russia from 2000 to 2008 and took Israeli citizenship in 2018.<br> <br>Around 300,000 Jews lived in Spain when, in 1492, monarchs Isabella and Ferdinand ordered them and the country´s Muslims to convert to Catholicism or leave.<br>Tens of thousands fled to Portugal, only to be persecuted there or expelled in 1496. (Reporting by Andrei Khalip, Editing by Timothy Heritage)<br>