Angola: Eduardo dos Santos daughter may take case to European Court of Human Rights

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Angola: Eduardo dos Santos daughter may take case to European Court of Human Rights

9:50 CAT | 18 Aug 2022

File photo: Lusa

Welwitschea ‘Tchizé’ dos Santos. one of the daughters of former Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, said on Thursday that she would complain to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in case the Spanish justice maintains the decision to hand over her father’s corpse to his ex-wife.

“If the answer [to the appeal filed today regarding the decision to award custody of the corpse of the former President of Angola to his ex-wife] is to deliver the body and authorise the transfer, I will complain to the European Court of Human Rights because here we have a citizen who wants to take the body to Angola, and myself and other European citizens will be putting our lives at risk if we go there,” Tchizé dos Santos said.

In an interview with Lusa following the filing of an appeal over the Spanish court’s decision to award custody of the body to Ana Paula dos Santos, a former wife of former Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos, and authorise its transfer to Angola, the former head of state’s daughter said the decision was unfair.

“It is a human right for us to bury our father. Our father is where we [the children] are, and a European court to authorise the transfer of a body to a country where there is no security is a crime against human rights because it is putting my life at risk, and if it decides like this, I will seek justice because it does not seem a fair decision,” she argued.

“Very surprised” by the decision announced on Wednesday, Tchizé dos Santos said that “Spain has different judicial courts, where different matters are dealt with” and stressed that “what was being dealt with in this court was the homicide investigation”.

“The court decided to shelve it, fine, but this court is not the one which must deal with family matters,” she stressed.

Asked about the reason for saying that the funeral is being prepared to take place in Luanda on Monday, two days before election day, Tchizé dos Santos acknowledged that she has no proof but assures that this is the intention.

“I have information, I have no proof, but I was informed that the plan is to take the body [to Angola] tomorrow [Friday] or Saturday and hold the funeral on Monday,” she said, considering that the decision is “yet another humiliation from João Lourenço to José Eduardo dos Santos.

She recalled that the former Japanese prime minister, who died on the same day as José Eduardo dos Santos, would only be buried at the end of September, by decision of the Japanese parliament, and noted that “a state funeral cannot be organised from one day to the next”.

In the interview, Tchizé dos Santos strongly criticised the current President João Lourenço, calling him “murderous, corrupt and primitive”, and maintained that her life, and that of her brothers and sisters, would be in danger if they returned to Angola.

José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled Angola from 1979 to 2017, died on 8 July at the age of 79 in Barcelona, Spain, where he spent most of his time over the past five years.

Two factions of the dos Santos family are disputing who will take custody of José Eduardo dos Santos’ body.

On one side are Tchizé dos Santos and her older siblings. They oppose handing over the remains to the former first lady and are against holding a state funeral before Wednesday’s elections [August 24] to avoid political point-scoring.

On the other side are the widow Ana Paula dos Santos and her three children in common with José Eduardo dos Santos, who also claim the body and want it to be buried in Angola shortly.

On Wednesday, the court decided to award the body to his former wife. It authorised its transfer to Angola after concluding that José Eduardo dos Santos had died of natural causes.

Source: Lusa