Hidden debts: Armed assailants try to sabotage the trial – AIM report | Watch

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Hidden debts: Armed assailants try to sabotage the trial – AIM report | Watch

7:18 CAT | 18 Feb 2022

Photo: Domingo

Unidentified assailants attacked the Maputo top security prison (known as the “B.O.”) in the small hours of Thursday morning, in an apparent attempt to stop the trial of 19 people accused of crimes arousing from the scandal of Mozambique’s “hidden debts”.

The Maputo City Court is holding the trial in a large tent erected on the prison grounds. Scheduled for Thursday was the testimony of the final witness – former President Armando Guebuza, and it is believed that those who attacked the prison wanted to prevent Guebuza’s testimony from being broadcast live on Mozambican radio and television.

Guebuza could have used his status as a member of the Council of State (a body that advises the President of the Republic) to request that his testimony be taken in his office, or in writing. But Guebuza declined this possibility, and insisted that he address the court just like any other witness.

Clearly his decision rattled somebody – for at about 02.00 on Thursday morning, two cars, a Nissan Hardbody and a Toyota Fortuner, drew up outside the BO main gate and launched an attack, aimed against the dedicated transformer post (PT), which supplies electricity to the trial tent.

From one vehicle, the attackers threw a smoke grenade, while from the other, gunmen opened fire against the PT.

The police unit stationed at the prison reacted quickly, and the vehicles both drove back into the night. Nobody was arrested. The transformer post was not knocked out, and the only damage done was to the prison wall and gate.

An agent of the National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) told reporters “we suspect that people of bad faith wanted to sabotage the PT in order to paralyse the trial”.

The attempted sabotage was followed by a lengthy power cut, and it was suspected that this too was an attempt to halt the trial. A second power cut followed, at 12.45, but, relying on generators, power was swiftly restored.

The second power cut affected other parts of the city, and so is unlikely to have targeted the trial. It rained heavily in Maputo during much of the morning, and the stormy weather may have been the real cause of the power cut.

Watch the Miramar report.