Longuinhos Monteiro

Longuinhos Rabindranatha Tagore Domingues de Castro Monteiro (born 20 December 1968) is an East Timorese jurist, administrator and politician. He has held several positions in government, including that of Minister of the Interior in the VI Constitutional Government between 2015 and 2017.

Early life Monteiro was born in Maliana, Bobonaro, in the then Portuguese Timor. His father, Xavier Longuinhos Monteiro de Castro, was a medical doctor who had emigrated to Portuguese Timor from Caranzalem, Goa, in the then Portuguese India, in August 1958. His mother, Rosa Manuela Domingos, a Timorese of Portuguese origin, had met her future husband while working as a registered nurse. In July 2006, the then President of East Timor, Xanana Gusmão, appointed him to a second term as Attorney General.

Following an incident in November 2004 when Monteiro and two other prosecutors forced Lui to give them IDR 279,000,800, Lui made a complaint to the National Police of East Timor (PNTL) about the incident, and registered the complaint as a criminal case. That case was held up, and on 23 August 2005 Lui delivered to Monteiro a summons commencing a civil case against Monteiro making similar allegations. Two days later, on 25 August 2005, the newspaper Diario Tempo published a story about the civil case entitled "Three Prosecutors Engage in Corruption, Money ". Based on that story, Monteiro commenced both criminal and civil proceedings accusing Lui of defaming him. and, controversially, was appointed as chief of the PNTL. One critic of the appointment, Luis de Oliveira Sampaio, executive director of Judicial System Monitoring Programme, a non-governmental organisation, stated that "We would prefer the commander to come from inside the institution ...". Another critic, Arsenio Bano, an Opposition member of the National Parliament, made a similar statement, and also claimed that Monteiro had "... not performed very well ..." as Attorney General.

Monteiro is credited with having introduced various norms and standard operating procedures while serving as chief of the PNTL. He was replaced as chief of the PNTL by . It was the first time an East Timorese administrative official had ever been asked to assume a ministerial position; Monteiro did so as a political independent.

2023 detention On 16 January 2023, Monteiro's residence in Liquiçá was searched by criminal investigators who did not have the necessary search powers or any search warrant. They seized several weapons, and a quantity of ammunition. The following day, Monteiro was subjected to a first interrogation in Dili, and was detained, by the (PCIC), for alleged possession of a prohibited weapon. On 18 January 2023, the Dili District Court ordered that Monteiro be released from detention, on the grounds that the search, interrogation and detention had been illegal.

Personal life Monteiro is married with two sons. He and both of his sons have Indian Hindu middle names, as do his five brothers.