Case of Portuguese businessman who disappeared in Gorongosa closed for lack of evidence

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Case of Portuguese businessman who disappeared in Gorongosa closed for lack of evidence

9:30 CAT | 01 Nov 2018

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The provincial prosecutor’s office in Sofala, central Mozambique, announced on Friday (October 26) that investigations into the disappearance in 2016 of the Portuguese businessman Américo Sebastião had been closed for lack of evidence.

“Unfortunately, to this day [Friday] we have no clue as to who the perpetrators may have been,” Sofala’s chief prosecutor Carolina Azarias told the press in Beira, the provincial capital.

Investigators had analysed withdrawals made with Sebastião’s bank cards and calls and telephone messages via cellphone operators, she said.

Carolina Azarias said that the Public Prosecutor, in charge of the case, had decided not to bring charges for lack of information, and referred the case for higher hierarchical assessment, whereupon it was archived..

The case could be reopened if new leads arose. “The archiving is not definitive. If supervening elements arise, the preparatory instruction [investigation] will be reopened in order to hold the true perpetrators accountable,” Sofala’s chief justice said.

Witnesses saw Sebastião being abducted by armed men from a filling station in Nhamapadza, Maringue district, on July 29, 2016. According to Sebastião’s family, the kidnappers then used his debit and credit cards to steal four thousand Euros, but were unable to continue when the accounts were blocked.

The family has requested the intervention of the Mozambican government, the President of the Assembly of the Republic of Mozambique, Verónica Macamo, and the Ombudsman, Isaac Chande, as well as the Portuguese state, but so far there has been no clarification.

Source: Lusa