Mozambique: President Nyusi arrives in Rome for Italy-Africa Summit
Former mayor of Nampula, Mahamudo Amurane
Six months after the assassination of Nampula mayor Mahamudo Amurane, no suspect has been arrested, and Mozambican police say the case is no longer in their hands. Various parties have lamented the authorities’ silence.
Yesterday marked six months after the assassination of Mahamudo Amurane, the first mayor of Nampula from an opposition party.
Amurane was murdered at his private residence in October 2017. The case remains unresolved and there are no prospects for its clarification.
The Mozambican police (PRM), which had promised to investigate and hold the perpetrators responsible for the crime, now says the case is no longer within its competence but in the hands of the Attorney General’s Office in Nampula.
Amurane’s family continues to wait for clarification and accountability, Selemane Amurane, brother of the assassinated mayor says.
“The information that we have so far from the authorities is that he was barbarously murdered by an unknown individual and that the authorities are investigating, so we do not want to disrupt the investigations through speculation. We, the family, are confident [of enlightenment], because this pain is not ours alone, but also of the whole Mozambican people,” he says.
“Political” assassination
Representatives of some political parties say that Amurane died because of the liberation of Nampula and regret the authorities’ silence.
“A citizen has disappeared in a strange way and no one speaks,” says Mário Muquissince, president of the United Integral Salvation Action Movement (AMUSI) party. “We know he was silenced because he was a man who fought to liberate the people [of Nampula] and an [macua] ethnic group[the Macua] who were always harassed, and we believed that the treatment did not have to be this, to keep everything quiet,” he said.
Filomena Mutoropa, a member of the Municipal Assembly of Nampula and secretary general of the Humanitarian Party of Mozambique (PAHUMO), also condemns the lack of clarification of this crime.
“We are asking for information, at least some hints, about who murdered Amurane and for further investigation, because it intimidated the city and province of Nampula and intimidated the Macua,” says Mutoropa.
Other assassinations
Mozambican lawyer and analyst Alindo Muririua fears, however, that the case will never be clarified, like other crimes against public figures in the country.
“Amurane was murdered by the same group that murdered the constitutional lawyer Gilles Cistac, Judge Dinis Silica, [member of the Mozambican National Resistance] Jeremias Pondeca, among others, we will never know the face of the murderers,” says the jurist.
Muririua downplays the statements made by PRM on the Amurane case now being in the hands of the PGR (Public Attorney’s Office): “If it is not for the police, where is the Attorney’s Office going to get the results of the investigation?”
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