Hidden debts: Bar Association defends Chivale – AIM report

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Hidden debts: Bar Association defends Chivale – AIM report

8:25 CAT | 26 Oct 2021

FILE PHOTO : Ordem dos Advogados de Moçambique

The Mozambican Bar Association (OAM) has rushed to the defence of Alexandre Chivale, a defence lawyer whom judge Efigenio Baptista removed from the “hidden debts” trial in Maputo last Thursday.

Baptista accepted the argument by prosecutor Sheila Marrengula that Chivale’s conflicts of interest made it inappropriate for him to continue representing Antonio Carlos do Rosario, the former head of economic intelligence in the country’s Security and Intelligence Service (SISE).

Chivale is a director of Txopela Investments, a company which has close ties to the Abu Dhabi based group Privinvest, which is at the heart of the bribery and money laundering that charactise the “hidden debts” case.

When prosecutors ordered the seizure of properties owned by Rosario, in 2019, Txopela was appointed as the “bona fide depositary”, despite its close relations with Rosario.

To run Rosario’s property portfolio, Chivale set up another company, Dandula Investments, in which he owns 75 per cent of the shares. He also took advantage of the situation to occupy one of the Txopela flats.

Marrengula successfully demanded that Txopela be sacked as “bona fide depositary”, and that Chivale be told to vacate the flat. Baptista gave him five days to do so. He must also surrender all the keys to the properties to the court, which will then turn them over to the Department of State Assets in the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

Far more controversial was Baptista’s acceptance of Marrengula’s demand that Chivale be removed from the case altogether. This was partly because of Chivale’s intimate ties with companies accused of involvement in money laundering, and partly because his own client, Rosario, fingered him, on 5 October, as “a SISE collaborator”.

Chivale could have denied this claim at once, or at any time in the following fortnight, But he kept silent and only on 19 October did he deny working for SISE. By then it was too late. Marrengula said Rosario was a senior SISE officer, and when he blew Chivale’s cover, there was no reason to disbelieve him, especially as Chivale himself did not react. Chivale was thus working for the state, no matter in how informal a fashion, and so he could not represent people who are opposing the state.

Mozambican law states that a lawyer employed in any capacity by the state cannot represent someone who is taking action against the state. In this case a very large sum of money pits the 19 defendants against the Mozambican state. One of the prosecution’s demands is that the defendants should compensate the state to the sum of 2.9 billion US dollars, plus interest. For the prosecution, this means that anybody working for the state would be in a clear conflict of interests if he also tried to represent one of more of the defendants.

Baptista accepted Marrengula’s argument, and told Chivale he could no longer represent any of the “hidden debts” defendants.

The OAM was outraged, and claimed that Baptista was trespassing on its territory. It described Baptista’s decision as “illegal, abusive, disrespectful and of no utility for the good administration of justice”. It was “an affront to the rule of law”, the OAM claimed.

At stake here was a claim that only the OAM has the power “to check the incompatibilities and impediments of its members”, and to take disciplinary action against them in the event that they have violated rules of probity. Baptista, the OAM claimed, had usurped powers which the law attributes to the OAM.

The OAM expressed solidarity with Chivale, but did not so much as mention his alleged complicity in money laundering or his role as a SISE collaborator.

Clearly Baptista had seen trouble on the horizon, for last Tuesday he had stressed that his decision only affects this case and does not disqualify Chivale from any other case.

Baptista stressed that the court has the right to decide on any irregularities discovered during a trial. Furthermore, declaring Chivale unable to continue working on this case was a procedural, rather than a professional, matter, he said, and did not affect Chivale’s standing as a lawyer.

Chivale has announced his attention to appeal against Baptista’s ruling, and so a higher court might reinstate him as Rosario’s lawyer. Meanwhile, Rosario has appointed Isalcio Mahanjane as his new lawyer: Mahanjane is already representing another prominent accused in the case, Ndambi Guebuza, the oldest son of former President Armando Guebuza.

The trial is due to resume on Thursday.

Source: AIM