In a statement sent to Lusa News Agency, the local authority said: “The Judicial Court of the County of Castelo Branco dismissed as totally unfounded the action filed” by the businessman in the city, who claimed ownership of the Torah, claiming that he had bought it from the finder for €100,000.
Contacted by Lusa, the businessman’s lawyer said he would appeal, but did not want to make a statement on the ruling.
On 15 September, 2016, the municipality reported that a 400-year-old Torah had been discovered in the city. According to the news at the time, the holy book was in a very good state of conservation and it was being kept by the local authority in order to study and assess its historical importance.
According to the explanation given at the time by Covilhã Mayor Vítor Pereira, the Torah had been found about 10 years earlier during the demolition of a building in the centre of the city, but, at the time, the contractor had not been aware of the importance of the finding, and simply kept it.
A few days later, businessman Manuel Jose Correia, who owns a well-known restaurant in the city, publicly announced that he had bought the Torah from the contractor and that the transaction had been registered at a notary’s office.
Invoking the public interest of the document, the Covilhã local authority did not hand over the document and the businessman eventually proceeded with a lawsuit.
Torah is the name given to the first five books of the Tanakh, which constitute the central text of Judaism.