South African court postpones Esmael Nangy’s hearing due to lack of documentation

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South African court postpones Esmael Nangy’s hearing due to lack of documentation

5:43 CAT | 16 Feb 2023

File photo: SABC

A court in Gauteng on Wednesday (15-02) postponed an extradition hearing in the case of a Mozambican businessman detained for six weeks in South Africa at the request of Mozambique, due to lack of formal documentation from the authorities in Maputo.

Calvin Maile, the South African lawyer for businessman Esmael Maulide Ramos Nangy, accused by his country’s authorities of masterminding kidnappings in Mozambique, explained to Lusa that the postponement was requested by the National Prosecuting Authority of South Africa (NPA).

Malie was asked about the Mozambique extradition process during his brief appearance at Tembisa Magistrates’ Court on the outskirts of Johannesburg.

“They [NPA] have not received any formal extradition document from Mozambique. At this stage they are only fulfilling a provisional arrest request. They have not yet received the extradition documents, but that does not prevent the bail application from proceeding,” Maile said.

“The magistrate today asked [concerning the extradition request],” the South African lawyer continued, “why they [the NPA] claimed that Mr Nangy has another case in Mozambique, which is complete nonsense, and the magistrate said that, that being the case, she wants to know about it, and that they should give her more information. I think that the State did not have the information to hand and that they needed some time to obtain it, so the matter was postponed until Friday.”

The hearing of the Nangy case had already been postponed, on February 2 and for the fourth time, to this Wednesday.

The 50-year-old Mozambican trucking entrepreneur was arrested on January 7 in a luxury condominium near Pretoria, the South African capital, on the basis of an arrest warrant and extradition request from the Government of Mozambique, the South African police told Lusa.

The police seized in his possession a licensed 9mm firearm, 14 pieces of ammunition of the same calibre, five cell phones, several South African bank cards, plus several Mozambican and South African cards.

The Mozambican is alleged by the Maputo authorities to have led a group responsible for kidnappings in Mozambique, and faces a possible prison sentence of more than 20 years, according to the arrest warrant Lusa has seen.

Source: Lusa