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Miramar
On the second day of the trial of nine people accused of stealing 36 million meticais (worth around 1.2 million US dollars at the time of the theft) from the Mozambican Army Command, the civilians in the dock admitted that their bank accounts had been used in the theft, but denied any knowledge of where the money that appeared in those accounts had come from.
Four of the accused worked in the Maputo headquarters of the Army Command, while the other five were relatives or lovers. They all admitted “lending” their accounts and even their bank cards to the military personnel accused of the theft.
The key figures in the corrupt scheme, according to the prosecution, were Ernesto Rufino and Abdul Ismael, who worked in the sector that processed wages in the Army Command.
Rufino’s wife, Guilhermina Macaringue, told the court on Wednesday that she had given her bank card to her husband and had no idea of the origin of the money that appeared in her account. The prosecution says that account received 3.9 million meticais between January 2010 and December 2014.
Sonia Cossa, the lover of Abdul Ismael, received four million meticais in her account between January 2012 and January 2014, while 3.4 million meticais flowed into the account of Ismael’s brother, Ussene Ismael, between January 2011 and July 2015.
A fourth accused, Monica Simango, received 1.4 million meticais in her account between 2010 and 2015, while the fifth of the civilians, Sara Calima, allegedly a lover of Rufino, received 300,500 meticais in the same period. She claimed she withdrew between 5,000 and 7,000 meticais a month from this sum to support her daughter.
The prosecution alleges that Ismael used some of the stolen money to buy two vehicles, a Toyota Land Cruiser and a Toyota Harrier. Rufino and Macaringue are alleged to have built a house in Marracuene district (about 30 kilometres north of Maputo), while Calima acquired furniture that cost over 700,000 meticis.
The trial is due to continue on Thursday, when the Maputo City Court will interrogate the four soldiers among the accused.
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