Mozambique: Court legalises detention of police officers over election observer killing

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Mozambique: Court legalises detention of police officers over election observer killing

3:13 CAT | 23 Oct 2019

Photo: Sala da Paz

The Judicial Court of Gaza Province has legalised the detention of two Rapid Intervention Unit agents involved in the murder of election observer Anastácio Matavel in Xai-Xai, southern Mozambique.

The two officers were part of a group of five individuals (four members of the police and one civilian), two of whom died in a car crash while trying to escape after shooting and killing Anastácio Matavel, according to reports by both the non-governmental Centre for Public Integrity (CIP) and the Mozambican police.

A fifth suspect is on the run, but authorities have already issued an arrest warrant, according to sources quoted today by the Mozambican Information Agency, AIM.

Anastácio Matavel, executive director of the Gaza Non-Governmental Organisations Forum (FONGA), was shot dead by a group that chased him on 9 September while he was driving his car in Xai-Xai, the capital of Gaza province in southern Mozambique.

The event was reported at 11:00 a.m. after the activist had left an observer training seminar he was addressing regarding Mozambique’s sixth general election, held on 15 October.

The day after the murder, the Mozambican Police Commander General suspended the commander of the Gaza Rapid Intervention sub-unit and the commander of the Special Operations Group in Gaza, to which the suspects belonged, and set up a commission of inquiry, which has yet to comment publicly on the matter.