Beira: Alleged financier of the Renamo Military Junta denies accusations – Listen

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Beira: Alleged financier of the Renamo Military Junta denies accusations – Listen

1:52 CAT | 24 Jan 2020

Supposed recruits from the self-proclaimed Renamo Military Junta, Sofala. [Photo: Voa Portugues]

Former Renamo deputy, Sandura Ambrósio, detained on January 14 and charged with conspiracy against the state, spoke to Voa Portugues as he was being transferred from police cells to the central jail in Sofala, on Thursday, January 23.

Sandura was arrested after a court warrant was issued against him over alleged financing of the self-proclaimed Renamo Military Junta, a group of dissidents from the largest opposition party to whom armed attacks in central Mozambique are attributed.

The former Renamo official yesterday reiterated that he was innocent, claiming that he had never responded to any of the several requests for finance from elements linked to the self-proclaimed Renamo Military Junta.

“I am innocent,” Sandura Ambrósio said during his transfer to jail, asking: “Where is this money [for me to] to give the (self-proclaimed) Military Junta?”

“The reason why I am going to jail is simply because someone asked me for money, and I didn’t give it,” he added.

Sandura Ambrósio is the only one of the Renamo deputies and former deputies listed as suspected of having a connection and financing the self-proclaimed Renamo Military Junta led by Mariano Nhongo, a former military adviser to Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama, to have been arrested.

On Monday, 21 January, Sandura Ambrósio and Manuel Bissopo, the former Renamo general secretary, were interviewed in Beira, and on Tuesday, Elias Dhlakama, Afonso Dhlakama’s younger brother, was questioned in the Attorney General’s Office in Maputo.

However, the Sofala judicial authorities consider that there is sufficient evidence to deprive the former deputy of his freedom.

Mário Tamele, chief investigator of the Sofala Criminal Investigation Services who led the operation which detained the former deputy, said that Ambrósio’s links to the dissident group had been under the microscope for a long time.

“There is data collected in the scope of the investigation and, from that information, it was felt that there was sufficient evidence for his arrest,” Tamele said.

Deputies António Muchanga, José Manteigas and the former Renamo whip in the Assembly of the Republic, Ivone Soares, were also interviewed by the Attorney General’s Office in connection with the case.

By André Baptista

Source: Voa Portugues