João Augusto Ferreira de Almeida

João Augusto Ferreira de Almeida (3 April 1894 — 16 September 1917) was a soldier in the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps of the First World War. After six months of combat, he was convicted of desertion by a court martial and executed by firing squad.

He was the only Portuguese soldier to be executed in the war, and the last person executed by Portugal. The death penalty for civilian crimes had been abolished in 1867 and in the military in 1911, but reinstated in 1916 for military crimes abroad during the theatre of war.

In March 1917, he was sent from Lisbon to Brest, France as part of the 14th infantry battalion of the Portuguese Expeditionary Corps. In July, he was transferred to the 23rd, and also given a 60-day prison term for being absent without leave with the unit's water car, having driven 60 kilometres away to Wavrans. Days later, he disobeyed higher orders. On 29 July, he offered money to fellow soldiers to take him over enemy lines, where he would share maps of Allied positions with the Germans.

On the centenary of the execution and 150th anniversary of the abolition of the death penalty for civilian crimes, President of Portugal Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa released an official statement requesting the "moral rehabilitation" of Ferreira de Almeida, who had been given a "punishment contrary to human rights". The statement was not an official pardon.