On 12 November 1980 a joint Defense and Foreign Ministry declaration , joining the United States ' embargo , declared that Portugal would not sell or ship weapons to Iran . On 4 December 1980 the 1980 Camarate air crash saw a small private aircraft carrying Portuguese Prime Minister Francisco de Sá Carneiro and Defense Minister Adelino Amaro da Costa crash in Camarate , Lisbon . Initial investigations concluded the incident was an accident , but later parliamentary investigations found evidence of a bomb beneath the cockpit . In 2004 the VIIIth parliamentary inquiry into the affair , headed by Nuno Melo concluded in its unanimous final report that the incident had been caused by an explosive device on the aircraft . Melo told the Xth enquiry in 2013 to investigate the role of arms sales to Iran and the Army 's " Fundo de Defesa do Ultramar " slush fund , saying that da Costa had asked the Army about arms sales to Iran on 2 December 1980 , and that on 5 December , the day after his death , the Army had issued an order illegally declaring arms sales to be under its jurisdiction , not the Defence Minister 's
1980 Camarate air crash
1980 Camarate air crash
Portugal and the Iran–Iraq War