“Defamation” to link the state with crime, says minister Monteiro

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“Defamation” to link the state with crime, says minister Monteiro

7:03 CAT | 27 May 2016

Mozambican Interior Minister Basilio Monteiro on Thursday said it is “defamation” to link the Mozambican state with criminal acts, such as the shooting and maiming last Monday of prominent academic and political commentator Jose Jaime Macuane.

Interviewed in Friday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, Montero said the attack on Macuane “is very worrying, but you can trust that the state is not involved in these crimes. Nothing can justify the involvement of the state because the role of the state is to guarantee security”.

He promised an efficient response to violent crimes, but asked the Mozambican public for patience. “Clearing up a crime committed by persons unknown is a delicate matter”, said Monteiro. “But cases are not abandoned just because the criminals are unknown”.

“Let us allow the police to work calmly, counting on the collaboration of all segments of society”, the Minister urged. “We believe the police will bring results”.

Monteiro’s optimism contrasts with the warnings sounded by President Filipe Nyusi himself who, a year ago, declared that corruption inside the police force gives him sleepless nights. At a police parade in Maputo in May 2015, Nyusi said “the news of policemen who join the ranks of the criminals, particularly when I am told that they have the necessary training so as not to commit the crimes they have embraced, deprives me of sleep. I cannot sleep when the statistics show an increasing number of police involved in crime”.

A significant number of policemen have been expelled from the force for criminal activities, and some have been sentenced to jail terms for crimes as serious as kidnapping. Against this background, suspicions that present or former members of the security forces might have been involved in the attack against Macuane are not at all far-fetched.

Meanwhile, further allegations have arisen of the bodies of murder victims found in the bush of the central provinces of Sofala and Zambezia. These new claims are now being investigated by the Commission on Constitutional and Legal Matters and Human Rights of the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, in addition to the known case of at least 11 bodies dumped in Macossa district, in Mania province, and allegations of mass graves in Sofala and Manica.

O País / Deputy Interior Minister Jose Coimbra

Deputy Interior Minister Jose Coimbra was questioned about the new claims by the Commission on Thursday. He told reporters later that he had no information on the matter and that the police would investigate.

“We were told that bodies have been found in Mocuba (Zambezia) and in Gorongosa (Sofala)”, he said. “We shall look into it to see whether the information is true or not. We don’t want to live on the basis of speculations”.

Coimbra also told the parliamentary commission that no evidence has been found of any mass graves. As for the bodies dumped in Macossa, he claimed they had initially been miscounted “because of the stress, the trauma, and the conditions under which the bodies were found”.

“We were given the number of 13, but when a forensic examination was made and biological material was collected from the victims, we reached the conclusion that there were 11 bodies”, he said.

Source: AIM