Costa, Afonso Da

Costa, Afonso Da

 

Born Mar. 6, 1871, in Seia, in the province of Beira Alta; died May 11, 1937, in Paris. Portuguese statesman.

In 1896, da Costa became a professor of criminal law at the University of Coimbra. As a leader of the bourgeois republicans, he took an active part in the Portuguese Revolution of 1910. He served as minister of justice in the provisional government of the republic (1910–11) and implemented a decree on the separation of church and state. He was prime minister in 1913–14 ,1915–16, and 1917. In 1919, da Costa represented Portugal at the Paris Peace Conference. After the establishment of a military dictatorship in Portugal in 1926, he emigrated to France.