Portugal paid a last tribute on Sunday to the former socialist president Jorge Sampaio, who died on Friday at the age of 81, hailed as one of the politicians who marked the democratic history of the country, before being buried in a cemetery in the capital .
Jorge Sampaio “has made an important contribution to the dignity of our democracy and to the prestige of Portugal”, underlined Socialist Prime Minister Antonio Costa during a solemn ceremony.
For his part, the current President of the Republic, the conservative Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, praised the career of a man who loved Portugal without “seeking to become a hero”.
Secretary General of the Socialist Party, Mayor of Lisbon then Head of State between 1996 and 2006, Jorge Sampaio marked Portuguese political life in the period following the advent of democracy in 1974.
Several international personalities, including the King of Spain Felipe VI and the Secretary General of the UN, the Portuguese Antonio Guterres, participated in this last tribute organized at the Hieronymites monastery in Lisbon.
At the end of this ceremony, the coffin of the former president, covered with the red and green national flag, was applauded in the streets of the capital by many Lisbonites. The former president was then buried in the Alto Sao Joao cemetery, on the heights of Lisbon.
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