Editing PIDE (section)

==End of PIDE/DGS==
The most dramatic moments of the 1974 Carnation Revolution occurred near the DGS headquarters at António Maria Cardoso Street in Lisbon. Unidentified agents - desperate after being surrounded by rebellious troops and a throng of civilians - opened fire from the top of the building, killing four demonstrators. In turn, a DGS agent was also killed by the rebellious troops when trying to escape. These five people were the sole victims of the coup d'état which brought down the dictatorship.

This was the last strategic point to be occupied by the insurgents, thus leading to the escape of many of the agents and the destruction of most of the records. In the days following the revolution, most escaped to [[Spain]] or went underground. Many of the agents, including the director-general Silva Pais were, however, captured. Of those agents, 89 would later escape from the Alcoentre penitentiary, in a massive and never well-explained prison break in June 1975.{{cn|date=December 2019}}

Some of the PIDE/DGS archives were reportedly handed over by the Portuguese Communist Party to [[Soviet Union|Soviet]] agents.<ref>{{cite web |title=Desvio dos Arquivos da PIDE para o KGB |url=https://arquivos.rtp.pt/conteudos/desvio-dos-arquivos-da-pide-para-o-kgb/ |website=RTP Arquivos |publisher=RTP |access-date=19 September 2021 |language=pt-PT}}</ref>

After being ''sanitized'', the corporation continued its operations in the Portuguese colonies under the name of the Military Information Police (''Polícia de Informação Militar'').

A commission was created for the extinction of the secret police. The remainder of the documents since 1990 are in the [[Torre do Tombo]] National Archive. They can be accessed, but the names of agents and informers are not disclosed.

The only PIDE agents who faced trial were those responsible for the death of exiled opposition leader [[Humberto Delgado]]. They were [[tried in absentia|tried ''in absentia'']] and the case dragged on for several years. None of them served time in jail.

The brutality of the PIDE/DGS is dramatised in the 2000 film ''[[April Captains]]'', about the events of the day of the Carnation Revolution.

Because of the memory of the abuses of the PIDE/DGS in supporting the regime, the establishment of a new civilian intelligence agency was delayed for more than a decade. However, following [[1983 Turkish embassy attack in Lisbon|a terrorist attack]] on the [[Embassy]] of [[Turkey]], the assassination of a [[Palestine Liberation Organization]] representative at a [[Socialist International]] conference in 1983, and a number of domestic terrorist attacks by isolated far-left and far-right groups, the [[Government of Portugal|Portuguese government]] became convinced of the need for a new intelligence agency. This led to the establishment of the [[Sistema de Informações da República Portuguesa]] (SIRP, Intelligence System of the Portuguese Republic) in 1984.