Detentions over Amurane’s murder: Police neither confirm nor deny – Mozambique

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Detentions over Amurane’s murder: Police neither confirm nor deny – Mozambique

11:35 CAT | 10 Oct 2017

O País

The murder of Nampula mayor Mahamudo Amurane is still a matter of conversation among Nampula residents and the whole country, with the public eager to know what happened and who was behind the act.

O País is reporting that “information is circulating on the detention of more than eight people, including a councillor and an entrepreneur, who asked the mayor to leave his protocol residence that day in order to meet the three in his private residence”.

Asked about the existence of detainees suspected of involvement in the assassination, provincial police command spokesman Zacarias Nacute said that the police were working on the case. When asked again, he would only promise to speak in due time.

Wamphula Fax: More than ten people detained?

Meanwhile, Wamphula Fax “reliable sources”, neither confirmed nor denied by the PRM, say that at least fourteen people have been arrested in connection with Amurane’s death on 4 October at his residence in Cotocuane.

Two of the fourteen are thought to be the individuals who were with the mayor at the time of his murder, one a councillor and Amurane’s right-hand man and the other a contractor from the Island of Mozambique who was building a restaurant on the upper floor of the mayor’s residence.

According to Wamphula Fax investigations, eleven people were arrested over the weekend from a list that could still lengthen. The councillor and the contractor were with Amurane on the afternoon of the fateful day, on site and dealing with matters related to the work. When they left the site, the man, still at large, who fired three shots at Amurane arrived.

The contractor rushed Amurane to the Nampula Central Hospital, but he was dead on arrival.

He and the councillor were “collected” by the PRM at first only as witnesses, but then the police chose to conclude that they could be suspected of involvement in the crime and therefore indicted them as defendants.

A third detainee is a member of the MDM who, to our knowledge, is also suspected of involvement as a result of certain pronouncements made before the assassination. Amurane had received death threats.

The identity of the over 11 individuals allegedly detained across the city last Saturday is unknown.

There are still no clues as to the location of the perpetrator, who is presumed to have left the city. Attempts were underway to make produce a likeness and ascertain other details based on witnesses descriptions.

The relatives of the first two detainees are deeply upset with what they perceive as an illegality because, from being simple witnesses, the pair have been summarily accused of complicity in the death of their friend, the mayor of the municipality, without any grounds being presented by investigators.

Source: O País / Wamphula Fax