Representative image of the incident.
Credit: @PT_Invictus
A tourist's unsuspecting search for a refreshing beverage at a Lisbon restaurant turned into a bomb scare due to a translation error. The 36-year-old tourist, originally from Azerbaijan and fluent in Russian, had a desire to order pomegranate juice.
A language translation app mistakenly substituted "pomegranate" with the Portuguese word for "grenade", which led the tourist ended up in handcuffs, surrounded by police officers.
This incident transpired in Lisbon's Cais do Sodre district, where the tourist wrote down the translated word on a napkin to order a drink.
The regrettable app mistake led to a significant misunderstanding, as the restaurant staff misinterpreted the note as a bomb threat and promptly notified the police.
A viral video on the internet shows the dramatic sequence of events. In the video, the tourist is depicted lying face down on the street, surrounded by five police officers who proceed to handcuff him.
Subsequently, he was transported to a nearby police station for further questioning.
After a comprehensive investigation, it was established that he was not in possession of any weapons, leading to his subsequent release.
During his interrogation, law enforcement authorities conducted a search of his hotel room, but nothing suspicious was discovered.
Furthermore, Lisbon police accessed their database and collaborated with the country's counterterrorism unit as part of their investigative procedures.
The Russian language's use of the same word for both "pomegranate" and "grenade" can indeed lead to translation errors, as exemplified by the incident at the Lisbon restaurant.
In contrast, Portuguese employs distinct words for "pomegranate" (roma) and "grenade" (granada), which minimizes such linguistic confusion.