Chang extradition hearing postponed again – AIM report

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Chang extradition hearing postponed again – AIM report

7:02 CAT | 12 Mar 2019

File photo: MMO

Once again a decision on whether former Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang should be extradited to the United States has been postponed.

Chang put in an appearance at the Kempton Park Magistrates’ Court in Johannesburg at about 11.30 on Monday morning, according to the correspondent of the independent daily “O Pais”. But the hearing last for no more than half an hour, before the judge postponed it for a week, to 18 March.

Chang has been in South African police custody since 29 December, when he was detained at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport on the basis of an international arrest warrant, submitted by the US authorities.

They want to extradite him to New York to face charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud and securities fraud. The charges arise from the largest ever financial scandal in Mozambican history, in which three fraudulent companies, Proindicus, Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Assets Management) were set up and borrowed over two billion US dollars from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia on the basis of illicit loan guarantees signed by Chang.

Clearly in reaction to the US move, the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office (PGR) submitted its own request to South Africa for Chang’s extradition. The relevant documentation backing up this request was not ready until 4 March.

Last Thursday, the South African court decided that the US and Mozambican requests will be heard separately and not concurrently, as Chang’s defence team had wanted. The judge ruled that the American extradition request would be heard on Monday.

The defence lawyers have been working to reverse this decision. Much to the annoyance of the judge they had insisted that the case is “political” and so the decision must be taken by the Minister of Justice.

Their latest ploy is to insist that the Minister must decide which of the requests will take priority – the US or the Mozambican one. They argued that under the SADC (Southern African Development Community) protocol on extradition, the Kempton Park judge, William Schutte, does not have the power to decide which of the two requests shall be heard first.

The lawyers argued that the decision must be taken by the government, and the court has conceded this point.

The Minister’s decision is expected on Wednesday. The court will then, the following Monday, decide the merits of whichever of the two requests the court has prioritised.

Source: AIM