Hidden debts: Provisional freedom for some of those convicted - AIM report
Hidden debts: Defence lawyer claims the Public Prosecutor’s Office has been captured – AIM report
7:00 CAT | 09 Mar 2022
Photo: Domingo
The Mozambican Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) “has been captured and politicised” declared Isalcio Mahanjane, one of the defence lawyers in Mozambique’s “hidden debts” trial.
Mahanjane represents Antonio Carlos do Rosario, the former head of economic intelligence in the Mozambican security service (SISE), Ndambi Guebuza, the oldest son of former President Armando Guebuza, Ines Moiane, formerly Guebuza’s private secretary, and her nephew Elias Moiane. All face charges of financial offences, such as embezzlement and money laundering.
Speaking on Tuesday at the second day of the summing up by defence lawyers, Mahanjane accused the PGR of working for Mozambique’s enemies. “This trial has come under enormous political influence”, he claimed, and even went so far as to compare the PGR with the PIDE, the Portuguese political police under colonial rule.
He compared Deputy Attorney-General Alberto Paulo, who interrogated the suspects during the initial investigations, with the notoriously brutal PIDE torturer, Chico Feio.
“What is the agenda of this PGR?”, he asked, suggesting that it was working for the western donors, who cut off aid to Mozambique in the wake of the revelations in April 2016 about the true scale of the country’s foreign debts.
Like Rosario, he claimed that he company Kroll, hired to audit the three fraudulent companies Proindicus, Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management) was just a nest of western spies.
He cited approvingly an email message from Rosario of June 2017, in which he boasted of throwing the Kroll auditors out of his office. “I am pleased at how they are attacking me”, Rosario wrote at the time.
Mahanjane claimed it was no coincidence that the first islamist terrorist attacks in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, in October 2017, followed shortly after publication of the Kroll audit report. He suggested that the PGR was somehow in league with the terrorists.
“The PGR wants to destroy this country of heroes”, Mahanjane declared. In particular, the PGR’s targets were SISE, the ruling Frelimo party, and the legal profession, all of which it wanted to wipe out.
He claimed that the detentions of Rosario and of Ndambi Guebuza were “illegal and political”, and the continued detention of Ndambi violated the Mozambican constitution.
He claimed that Ndambi Guebuza’s sole crime is to be the son of the former President, whose enemies were working “to erase the name of Guebuza” from Mozambican history.
He denied the prosecution claim that Ndambi had taken bribes of 33 million dollars from the Abu Dhabi based group, Privinvest. The true figure, said Mahanjane, was “only” ten million dollars.
The money was not a bribe, since Guebuza Junior claimed he had a contract with Privinvest official Jean Boustani. “Is there any law against this?”, asked Mahanjane.
During his testimony last year, Ndambi Guebuza had claimed to be in a business partnership with Boustani but refused to give the court any details of this business.
Constantino Jemusse, lawyer for Renato Matusse, once Guebuza’s political adviser, claimed that his client’s testimony was illegal because it was filmed, despite Matusse’s request to keep the cameras out. This was one of several attempts in the early stages of the trial to muzzle the media. Judge Efigenio Bapista, however, ruled that the entire trial could be broadcast live.
Jemusse accused Baptista of bias in favour of the prosecution, and said he was “subservient” to prosecuting attorney, Sheila Marrengula. There was a “promiscuous” relation between the court and the Public Prosecutor’s Office, he claimed.
At the close of his speech, he told Baptista “if you don’t acquit my client, you will be passing a sentence of death on the judicial system”.
Baptista took this in his stride, and merely remarked “These provocations have no effect on me”.
Marrengula will have a chance to reply to the insults by Mahanjane and other defence lawyers when the trial resumes on Thursday. But, as demanded by the Mozambican legal codes, the defence will still have the last word.
It is likely that on Thursday Baptista will also announce a date for the verdict and sentence.
Source: AIM
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