"Contrary to all our norms and references, because even in the case of a punishment with loss of pay, there is a reduction but it cannot go below a certain amount, under penalty of jeopardizing the subsistence of the military and the family itself", explained Sergeant Lima Coelho.

Contacted by Lusa, the Navy's spokesman, Commander Sousa Luís, confirmed that these military personnel received a pay slip of zero euros for May and explained that this was due to the fact that, in April, these military personnel received their full salary, when they should have already had a penalty.

Thus, he clarified, in May they were discounted the penalty for the two months, which is why they did not receive any amount.

Questioned about the minimum amount of existence below which it is not allowed to penalize salaries, the Navy's spokesman referred further explanations to next week, but said that the penalized military personnel were informed of the reason for the lack of salary this month.

The president of the National Association of Sergeants accused the Navy of "moving towards a situation that borders on illegality and that is, by all means, unacceptable", something he views with "deep concern".

On 11 March 2023, the Portuguese Republic Ship (NRP) Mondego failed a mission to escort a Russian ship north of the island of Porto Santo, in the Madeira archipelago, after four sergeants and nine enlisted personnel refused to embark, citing safety reasons.

On 11 April this year, the Navy decided to suspend the 13 military personnel for between 10 and 90 days.

As Sergeant Lima Coelho explained to Lusa today, currently only two military personnel are already serving their sentence, because they were punished directly by the Chief of Staff of the Navy, Admiral Henrique Gouveia e Melo, and the appeal must be made in court.

The others were punished by the naval commander and appealed to the Chief of Staff of the Navy.

"In addition to the injustice of the Navy not yet having responded to the appeals that the lawyers of our comrades will have presented, or other mechanisms with the court, the navy decided to move forward and in a way that caught us all by surprise, because this is not our reading of the law", stressed Sergeant Lima Coelho.

On the other hand, argued the president of the National Association of Sergeants, "measures like these do not bring attractiveness, quite the contrary, they keep citizens from wanting to belong to the Navy" and lead those who already belong to consider leaving early.

The military personnel were accused by the Navy of "disobeying an order" and of having "released certain types of information to a military association".

In an inspection report prepared by a team set up for this purpose by the Navy, days after the military personnel's refusal, it was concluded that the 'Mondego' could sail safely, although the existence of "cracks in the ship's structure", "lack of watertightness", "difficulties in draining the engine room" and "inability to separate water and oils" is mentioned.

In an interview with Lusa, in December last year, the Chief of Staff of the Navy defended that the refusal of 13 military personnel to carry out a mission aboard the ship Mondego, in March, was an exception and assured that the incident had already been "completely overcome" in the Navy.

Read Also: Lawyers of military personnel from the Mondego ship will challenge the Navy's suspension (Portuguese version)