A BRITISH sailor has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder after allegedly throwing his non-swimmer girlfriend into a Portuguese river.
The 60-year-old was accused of abandoning the scene as his partner, saved by the crew of another boat who saw her in distress, began to drown.
The horror incident occurred on the River Tagus off the town of Oeiras in the western part of Lisbon’s metropolitan area.
The unnamed Brit was tracked down and arrested before being remanded in custody pending an ongoing criminal investigation after being hauled before a judge.
He is continuing to be probed on suspicion of domestic violence and attempted homicide.
The woman, who has been described as a foreigner and is also thought to be a Brit – although police haven’t released her nationality – was hospitalised after the incident.
Her current condition is not known.
Public prosecutors told local press the couple had started dating around a year ago and had lived together in the yacht owned by the man who has been arrested since December last year.
One told Portuguese newspaper Correio da Manha the Brit skipper allegedly “threw his victim into the river during a row” before abandoning the scene on his yacht “knowing she couldn’t swim”.
Maritime Police intercepted the suspect before he was formally arrested by officers from Portugal’s PSP police force.
The arrest is understood to have happened hours after the May 30 incident.
The yacht has been seized by investigators.
Portuguese police could not be reached early this morning for a formal comment.
The Tagus is the longest river in the Iberian peninsula.
It rises in the Sierra de Albarracin in eastern Spain, about 90 miles from the Mediterranean coast.
It flows westward across Spain and Portugal for 626 miles to empty into the Atlantic Ocean near Lisbon.
