Agents of crime must be held responsible for their acts – Buchili

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Agents of crime must be held responsible for their acts – Buchili

5:51 CAT | 24 May 2016

In File Club of Mozambique / Beatriz Buchili, Mozambique's Attorney General

Mozambique’s Attorney-General, Beatriz Buchili, on Monday declared it was time for prosecutors “to strengthen our courage and give confidence to our people that any agent of crime, no matter who he is, shall be held responsible”.

“That is the oath we have taken, and we must never lose sight of it”, she declared, at the opening of a meeting of the Coordinating Council of the Attorney-General’s Office, which is being held under the motto: “For a Public Prosecution Service that is Firm in the Fight against Organised and Transnational Crime”.

“We have no alternative but to fight crime, and particularly organized crime, with all our force”, said Buchili. “That is a challenge for the entire judicial machinery”.

She recalled those judges, prosecutors, police officers and lawyers who have fallen in the struggle against organized crime. The most recent case was that of Maputo city prosecutor Manuel Vilanculos, who was murdered on 11 April.

“The best way of weeping and avenging our colleagues is to embrace the oath we took, to pursue crime and, without hesitation, bring the agents of crime to trial and sentencing”, she added.

At the same time, “we must continue to show to the legislative and executive powers of our state the pertinence of more daring legislative reforms and making available more human, material and financial resources including the adoption of an adequate security strategy, within the country’s capacities, for the correct functioning of the legal machinery”. This was a delicate call for the provision of protection for judges and prosecutors handling sensitive cases so that no more of them will meet the fate of Manuel Vilanculos.

The same methods used to fight petty crime were not appropriate for the battle against organized crime. “We must advance firmly with the restructuring of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) and in legislative reform, so that we can use investigative methods and techniques that are in line with the complexity of the crimes that we face”, said Buchili.

For many years now lawyers and prosecutors alike have called for a radical overhaul of PIC – and particularly for an end to PIC’s subordination to the Ministry of the Interior.

Buchili also warned essential services, including the police and the courts, “to strengthen internal security measures, since criminals are able to introduce themselves into public organisations and manipulate services in order to weaken investigation and guarantee their impunity”.

A chilling view of the capital came the Maputo City chief attorney, Amelia Machava who declared that Maputo “has become the field for the greatest criminal atrocities”.

She pointed in particular to the assassination of judges and prosecutors. She could not have been aware that, just a couple of hours before she spoke, a further atrocity had been committed. Prominent political commentator, Jose Jaime Macuane, had been abducted from outside his Maputo house, driven outside the city, and shot four times in the legs.

Machava stressed that the State can only survive, “if it has strong institutions, if it has a Public Prosecutor’s Office and a judiciary who are capable of imposing themselves on individuals, without worrying what positions those individuals may occupy”.

In moments of crisis, she added, citizens expected that prosecutors will act to ensure that looted state property is return and that the looters are held responsible for their acts. But when judges and prosecutors are indifferent to the pillaging of state assets, they are contributing to the building of “a wall of crime”.

She cited the acceptance of blatant over-invoicing. “As the guardians of legality and of public probity, we can no longer just accompany reports, from social media or other sources, that the rehabilitation of a simple bathroom costs a million meticais (about 18,180 dollars, at current exchange rates) or that building a wall round a house costs three million meticais. We must not remain passive in the face of this”.

Source: AIM