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The man, whom
police did not identify, accidentally toppled Dom Sebastiao's
statue after climbing up to its pedestal outside the ornate
Rossio railway station in central Lisbon just before midnight on
Tuesday.
He tried to flee the scene but police caught him. He will appear
before a judge at a later date.
The child-sized statue of the sad-eyed, sword-wielding king
stood in a niche between two horseshoe-shaped arches at the
entrance to the station. Completed in 1890, the station is a
protected monument.
Dom Sebastiao, who ruled between 1557 and 1578, is a tragic
figure in Portuguese history, dying in battle at the age of 24
during a crusade of his own making in Morocco.
His body was never properly identified, giving rise to a legend
that the king would one day return to claim his throne and save
Portugal in times of trouble.
(Reporting By Andrei Khalip, editing by Axel Bugge and Gareth
Jones)
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