Attorney-General reports nine percent increase in crime – Mozambique

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Attorney-General reports nine percent increase in crime – Mozambique

6:16 CAT | 22 Jun 2016

AIM (File photo) / Beatriz Buchili

The number of crimes recorded in Mozambique rose by over nine per cent in 2015, according to the annual report on the state of justice in the country, delivered on Wednesday by Attorney-General Beatriz Buchili to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.

42,622 crimes were reported in 2014, but the figure rose to 46,530 in 2015, an increase of 9.2 per cent. The number of murders increased from 1,223 in 2014 to 1,754 in 2015.

There was an increase in crime in all provinces, except for Nampula and Zambezia where there was a slight drop. Maputo city and Maputo province (essentially the city of Matola) accounted for 45.5 per cent of all crimes.

Buchili concentrated particularly on the kidnapping and murder of albino citizens, killed in order to extract their body parts for use in superstitious rituals. There had been 51 crimes against albinos, resulting in 13 murders. 56 people had been detained in connection with these cases.

In one particularly gruesome case, she said, a four year old albino boy had been abducted by his stepfather and by the latter’s son-in-law in Morrumbala district in Zambezia, The killers cut off the boy’s head, arms and legs and dumped what remained of the body.

Such crimes, Buchili said, “create panic in communities, and oblige people suffering from albinism to go into hiding”.

As for several of the most notorious assassinations in 2015, Buchili could report no progress. In the case of the murder of constitutional lawyer Gilles Cistac, in central Maputo on 3 March 2015, two suspects had been detained, but were released when the legal period for preventive detention expired and no evidence was produced against them.

Currently no-one is under arrest and the case remains at the stage of “preliminary investigation”. The same is true for the murder of journalist Paulo Machava on 28 August 2015. The assassination the previous year, on 8 May 2014, of judge Dinis Silica, is likewise still under “preliminary investigation” with no suspects detained.

Buchili reported a decline in the number of kidnappings. There were 19 cases of criminal gangs kidnapping people (mostly business figures) in order to demand ransoms, compared with 42 in 2014. 16 of the 2015 cases occurred in Maputo and Matola.

14 kidnap cases came to trial, compared with 18 in 2014, and the accused were sentenced to prison terms of between 12 and 23 years.

Buchili believed that the compulsory registration of mobile phone SIM cards had made a significant contribution to criminal investigation. In principle, this means that when ransom demands are made by phone the authorities can find out who owns the phone number used.

Buchili urged the three mobile phone companies to collaborate in registering all SIM cards “since one of the purposes of these regulations is to protect citizens against criminal acts perpetrated through the use of cell phones”.

1,091 cases of rape were investigated, compared with 863 in 2014. 346 of these cases – 31.7 per cent – referred to the rape of girls under the age of 12. Charges were brought against the culprit in 759 of these cases, in 137 cases prosecutors declined to press charges, and the other 195 cases are still under investigation.

Domestic violence is running at an alarmingly high rate. In 2015, an average of 67 cases a day were reported, said Buchili. There were 10,518 cases where the victims were women or girls, and 2,976 where they were men or boys.

Buchili admitted that the real situation could be much worse, since many cases of domestic violence are never reported to the authorities.

The report listed the enormous losses which key public companies are suffering because of the theft, sabotage or destruction of their equipment. The public electricity company, EDM, suffered losses in 2015 of over 24.6 million meticais (about 411,000 US dollars at current exchange rates, but worth much more at 2015 exchange rates), from the theft of copper and aluminium cables, of metallic parts from pylons, and of electricity meters.

Thefts of fencing, lighting equipment and copper wires from airports cost the airport company, AdM. about 2.7 million meticais, while theft and sabotage cost the telecommunications company TDM about 6.8 million meticais.

But the public company worst hit was the ports and railway company, CFM. There have been constant thefts of sleepers and other track materials, and of components of wagons and carriages, adding up to losses of 194 million meticais.

One spectacular theft that went badly wrong was the raid by a flotilla of small fishing boats to steal fuel from the port of Matola on 13 December. The fuel caught fire during the theft, and 20 lifeless bodies were fished out of Maputo Bay. 19 people have been arrested in connection with this theft, including three policemen.

Such theft of public property, Buchili said, “constitutes a danger for public safety, and affect the quality of the services provided, and the expansion of those services across the country to meet the needs of the population”.

Source: AIM