Adelino Amaro da Costa

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Adelino Amaro da Costa, GCIH (Lisbon, 18 April 1943-Camarate, 4 December 1980) was a Portuguese politician.

He was a civil engineer by training.

After the Carnation Revolution, he founded, together with Diogo Freitas do Amaral, the Democratic Social Centre (CDS), a Christian Democrat political party predecessor of the current Popular Party.

After the victory of the Democratic Alliance, a coalition between the Social Democrats and his own party, in the Portuguese legislative election, 1980, he became the first civilian defence minister since the Carnation Revolution in 1980-01-03.

He died in a plane crash, together with his wife, the Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro and Sá Carneiro's partner, Snu Abecassis, while heading to Porto to take part in a rally for the Portuguese presidential election, 1981.

Conspiracy theorists claim he was the true target for assassination, for he had documents concerning the October Surprise conspiracy and was planning on taking them to the United Nations's General Assembly. According to this conspiracy theory, Reagan promised to sell American weapons to Iran, to replace the old portuguese ones; the Portuguese military was acting as middleman (two of the Portuguese Presidential candidates, in 1980, were Generals, and one of them was promptly accused as responsible for the assassination by many Sá Carneiro supporters); a boat with the weapons was almost seized at Lisbon's harbor. This theory is reinforced with the fact that Amaro da Costa was the one renting the plane, and Sá Carneiro a last minute passenger (possibly as a decoy).