Justice for 2024 Maputo double homicide “will be very difficult”, says Mondlane

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Justice for 2024 Maputo double homicide “will be very difficult”, says Mondlane

1:23 CAT | 15 Oct 2025

Photo: Luisa Nhantumbo/Lusa

Former Mozambican presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane blames “death squads” for the double murder of his supporters a year ago, assuming that under the “current regime” there will be no justice for the unexplained crime.

“I cannot say never. What I can say is that with the current regime, with the current judicial system, it will be very difficult for us to have justice. That is why we have to apply pressure, that is why I am at this moment already beginning to launch the idea of a national protest regarding these unsolved crimes,” the politician told Lusa in an interview.

The case concerns the shooting death of Mondlane’s supporters Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe in October 2024, immediately after the general elections, in the heart of Maputo. The crime remains unexplained and marked, two days later, the start of popular protests against the electoral process, which continued for over five months in Mozambique.

“Popular pressure is necessary, it is necessary that all of us – society, journalists, academics, and the international community – apply pressure on the government and the judicial system so that we do not continue with this system of things,” said Mondlane, who ran for president in the October 2024 elections.

Elvino Dias, known in Mozambique as the “people’s lawyer” for his social causes and support for the disadvantaged, was killed on the night of 18 October 2024 in an ambush. According to the police, almost a year later, no suspects or explanations for the crime have been provided.

At the time, Dias was Mondlane’s legal advisor. His car was intercepted in central Maputo by two vehicles from which armed men opened fire, fatally wounding Dias, 45, and Paulo Guambe, a representative of the Podemos party that supported Mondlane in last year’s elections.

The killings prompted protests in Maputo two days later, which were suppressed by police, followed by a challenge to the election results, which Mondlane has never recognised.

“For me there is absolutely no doubt that this was a job commissioned by the death squads,” Mondlane added, noting that the crime displayed the “same modus operandi” as “so many others who fell in the struggle for the truth”.

He stated that near the crime scene on the busy Joaquim Chissano Avenue in central Maputo, there are public CCTV cameras, as well as cameras from two banks and other institutions, which could have shown “with great precision” who carried out the killings of Paulo Guambe and Elvino Dias, but which, he claims, were not used in the investigation.

“There is a deliberate and institutional blockage regarding the truth about the murders of Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe. Therefore, it is a job commissioned by those who, at this moment, manage, promote and govern the death squads,” he alleged , calling for “a day of protest” on 19 October.

“Because it is not only about the problem of Elvino Dias. We have a list, a precedence of murders, kidnappings, various crimes that today place Mozambique on the map of the most dangerous, most criminal countries with the most prominent gangs in the world,” he claims, arguing that Mozambique needs “a day of reflection”. “We have to pause, at least one day this October, to reflect on what kind of society, what kind of state, what kind of government we want for the future,” he concluded.

The Constitutional Council proclaimed Daniel Chapo the winner of the presidential election on 23 December, two and a half months after the vote, with 65.17% of the vote in the 9 October general elections. Mondlane came second, with 24%, but never recognised the results.

The electoral monitoring platform Decide, a civil society organisation, reported in April that at least 388 people were killed and over 800 shot during about five months of post-election protests, 90% of which “were caused by live ammunition”.

Daniel Chapo and Venâncio Mondlane met in Maputo for the first time since the elections on 23 March. The following day, the former presidential candidate called for an end to violence, and no social unrest related to the electoral dispute has been recorded since.

Source: Lusa