Venâncio Mondlane hearing: There will be noise outside the Maputo PGR today – Savana

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Venâncio Mondlane hearing: There will be noise outside the Maputo PGR today – Savana

11:18 CAT | 20 Aug 2018

File photo: Savana

In what is being interpreted as yet another political move aimed at scuppering the Venâncio Mondlane’s candidacy as the head of Renamo list in the local elections of October 10, the man himself was due to appear at 9:00 a.m. this Monday at the Attorney General’s Office in Maputo. At that instance of the administration of justice, the head of list indicated by Renamo is to be heard on matter 577/1105/2017, wherein he is accused of libel and defamation of a person as yet undisclosed, Savana reports.

The notification, dated 15 August, advises the accused to go to the attorney’s office, accompanied by a lawyer.

Even Mondlane himself does not know exactly what the matter relates to, but he suspects that the accusation has to do with pronouncements he made in 2017 in the context of the campaign he and other citizens fought against the sale of a football field located in a Maputo suburb. At the time Mondlane severely criticised three people identified as promoters of the sale of the field for about three million dollars, in favour of a supposed group of investors.

On the understanding that the initiation of judicial process just as Mondlane is entering the final phase of preparations for the vote of 10 October is a political plot aimed at undermining his candidacy, supporters of Venâncio Mondlane, including Renamo members and sympathisers, will this morning demonstrate outside the very same Maputo Attorney General’s building.

Demonstrations of support voicing the shared conviction that the prosecution is a political pretext to halt a candidacy of one of the favourites have been being published on social networks since last Friday.

On the judicial process, Mondlane says it is even a good thing, and that the occasion might clarify areas of the attempt to sell the field, which is used by thousands of young people for sports and recreation. After a lot of noise, the sale of the field was cancelled for the sake of thousands of young people who were on the verge of seeing one of the last remaining public spaces transformed into condominiums, warehouses and chain stores, as has happened in so many other cases in the past.

Although we do not know the essence of the accusation and the identity of the accuser, it is generally believed that the process has little by way of legs to go much further, or even create much turbulence in the battle for Renamo’s list head, the largest opposition party in Mozambique.

E como não podia deixar de ser, a polícia já está posicionada para dispersar os jovens membros e simpatizantes da #Renamo que combinaram manifestar junto a Procuradoria da Cidade de #Maputo em solidariedade a @venamondlane que deverá ser ouvido hoje supostamente difamação . pic.twitter.com/LwStbbOqEA

— Alexandre Zerinho (@AllexandreMZ) August 20, 2018