British tourist ‘who killed Portuguese teenager by stabbing him in the neck with a broken bottle’ insists he was defending a friend and tells trial he fled the country because he didn’t trust police

A British banking executive accused of stabbing a teenager to death with a broken bottle in Portugal has insisted he was defending his friend.

Daniel Dunbar went on trial in Lisbon for the gruesome murder of 19-year-old Daniel Galhanas, nearly 10 months after losing his fight against extradition from the UK.

Dunbar, who was arrested in England in June after a two-year manhunt, is accused of stabbing the teenager with a broken glass bottle after a fight in the popular Bairro Alto district in October 2023.

Video footage shows the deadly scuffle in which a man throws a bottle at Galhanas’ friend and stabs him, with the teenager running away as he stumbles and falls into a pool of blood on the cobblestone streets.

Taking the stand Thursday, Dunbar said he became involved in a violent altercation after a Portuguese gang began attacking someone on the street, prompting him and his friends to intervene.

The Englishman, who will face life imprisonment if convicted, said in his speech in court: ‘While walking on the street, we saw a group attacking another person and asked them to stop.

‘They started running after us saying they were going to stab us, so we threw bottles at them.’

‘When one of our friends looked at them and offered to shake hands to get them to stop, he got hit with a bottle and I panicked and ran to his defence.’

He denied prosecution claims that he was hiding the broken bottle in his hand at the time, adding: ‘I only remember the sound of the broken bottle, it was all so confusing.’

Daniel Galhanas (pictured) was 19 when he was killed with a broken glass bottle on the streets of Lisbon.

The terrible moments when a Portuguese teenager was fatally stabbed in the neck were caught on camera

He also admitted he made a mistake by fleeing Portugal to England the day after the attack after seeing the horrific video of the attack.

‘The next day I saw the video and realized someone had died.

‘I should have gone to the police instead of leaving the country, but I was immature, didn’t trust the police and was afraid of being jailed.’

Shortly before his extradition, it was revealed that Dunbar, of Sidcup, Kent, was working in a ‘legal compliance-focused’ role in the Royal Bank of Canada’s Investor Management Department.

Local reports at the time of the murder said the murder victim was fatally stabbed in the neck while trying to defend a friend who was part of a gang of robbers.

Family members denied Galhanas was involved in the gang and said he was just trying to help his friend when he was attacked.

In the seven-page indictment, which was read in part on the opening day of Dunbar’s trial, it was stated that a group of British and seven other holidaymakers had a heated exchange of words with the group Galhanas was with after they saw him ‘kicking and punching’ a man named Duarte Pereira Paz.

Prosecutors claimed in the indictment that one of the Portuguese group fled after hitting a friend of Dunbar’s head with a bottle.

The written document adds: ‘Seeing this attack, the defendant armed himself with the neck of a broken bottle that he kept in his left hand, Daniel Filipe Lopes also approached Conceicao Galhanas and hit him on the right side of his neck with the gun, making a move that caused him to bleed to death.

‘He then fled the scene with his friends.’

The report, which revealed that the victim suffered fatal injuries to his carotid artery and carotid artery and was pronounced dead shortly after arriving at Sao Joao Hospital in Lisbon, added: ‘The accused man acted to deliver the blow he did in an area where he knew that the victim’s body contained large-caliber veins and arteries, such as the carotid artery and carotid artery, which could cause injuries that could lead to his death.’

‘He did this knowing that the broken bottle had sharp edges and was therefore the ideal weapon to achieve the desired result.’

Stating in the indictment that Dunbar acted ‘deliberately and consciously’, prosecutors claimed that he and his friends bought new return tickets to England in order to return earlier than planned after the street murder, and that they left Faro Airport instead of Lisbon Airport to ‘prevent the police from finding them’.

An online petition demanding ‘justice for Daniel Galhanas’, addressed to the then president of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the British Ambassador to Portugal, stated: ‘On October 14, 2023, at around 4 o’clock in the morning, our son, brother, grandson, nephew, cousin, friend Daniel Filipe Lopes da Conceição Galhanas, only 19 years old, gave birth to friends in a bar in Bairro Alto. after a night celebrating one of their days. Lisbon was returning home with only one friend.’

‘They both encountered what they thought was a fight, and finding themselves surrounded by the people involved, Daniel, in an attempt to defend the girl next to him and calm the situation, opened his arms as if to ask for calm, while repeating the English word ‘STOP, STOP’ to the person using the broken bottle as a weapon.

‘And that’s when Daniel became the target of the attacker, who stabbed him in the throat with the bottle.

‘The attacker, a British national who was fully aware of what he was doing and did not stop for a minute to help, immediately fled and boarded a flight to his country of origin at Lisbon airport in less than three hours.’

He added: ‘Daniel was an honest, responsible young man and a friend to EVERYONE, always acting in the name of PEACE…

‘He had completed his studies and got his first job in the Public Order Police workshops and was therefore very happy and proud.

‘In his own words, he could finally ‘help his mother…’!

‘Such was his sense of responsibility and gratitude towards his family and everything they had always done for him.

‘Now there is a family torn apart, trying to escape indescribable pain, a father and mother trying to survive with their responsibilities towards their youngest son and anxiety about justice being served.’

The charging order, submitted before Dunbar’s extradition, stated that the maximum prison sentence for the murder charge on which the Englishman is being tried ranges from 12 years to 25 years to life imprisonment.

At the time of his arrest in the UK, Dunbar was said to be working in a ‘legal compliance-centred’ role within the ‘Royal Bank of Canada Investor Management Department’.

Companies House records show the city’s child prodigy previously ran his own company, Dunbar Eight Limited, when he described himself as a financial advisor.

Dunbar objected to extradition, claiming he suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, was at risk of suicide and was mentally unstable after suffering a series of injuries playing rugby.

In his decision, District Judge David Robinson, who ruled that the British citizen should be extradited in March last year, referred to himself as RP while he was detained in the United Kingdom and said: ‘Immediately before RP’s arrest, he was living independently and working in a responsible position in a bank.

‘In my view the circumstances do not approach such a situation that extradition would be oppressive on account of the requested person’s mental state.

‘RP’ was considered to be mentally stable when he arrived at the prison.

‘Being openly accused of murder, being arrested and facing extradition to Portugal caused RP to experience stress and distress.

‘His extradition would undoubtedly cause further stress and distress.

‘However, the current state of his mental health is that his depressive episode is probably of moderate intensity and RP is not taking any medication for it.

‘I am satisfied that the return of the RP will not be disproportionate.’

Dunbar’s trial will continue next week and is scheduled to wrap up in the second week of next month.