Hidden debts; Chang extradition postponed – AIM report

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Hidden debts; Chang extradition postponed – AIM report

10:46 CAT | 28 Aug 2021

FILE - For illustration purposes only. [File photo: DW]

The Mozambican civil society coalition, the Budget Monitoring Forum (FMO), won a victory in the Johannesburg High Court on Friday when the court intervened to prevent the extradition to Maputo of former Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang.

Chang has been under South African police custody since 28 December 2018, when he was arrested at Johannesburg airport. An international warrant for his arrest had been issued at the request of United States prosecutors.

Both the US and Mozambique submitted applications for Chang’s extradition. Both wanted to put him on trial for crimes connected with the enormous financial scandal known as the case of the “hidden debts”.

It was Chang who had signed the loan guarantees which were crucial in persuading the European banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia, in 2013 and 2014, to lend over 2.2 billion US dollars to three fraudulent Mozambican companies, Proindicus, Ematum (Mozambican Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management).

Without Chang’s signature on the guarantees, the loans could not have gone ahead. With his signature, however, the Mozambican state became committed to repaying the loans, if the companies defaulted – which they soon did.

At one point, in May 2019, the South African Justice Minister of the time, Michael Masutha, decided that Chang would be returned to Mozambique. But he was reaching the end of his term of office, and his successor, Roland Lamola, reversed his decision. The High Court, in October 2019, declared that Masutha’s decision was illegal, but did not order the alternative – extradition to the US.

Instead, Lamola was told to reconsider the matter and choose whether to extradite Chang to Mozambique or to the US.

Lamola decided, last Monday, in favour of the Mozambican application. Chang was handed over to Interpol, and a plane was ready to carry him to Maputo. But the FMO submitted an urgent request that the High Court should review Lamola’s decision.

The FMO believes that Chang is more likely to face justice in a US court than in a Mozambican one, and it appears to be winning its case. Lamola on Wednesday gave an undertaking not to extradite Chang before the High Court had ruled, and later that day the Johannesburg High Court made Lamola’s undertaking an order of the court.

According to the South African “Daily Maverick”, both the Mozambique and South African governments withdrew their opposition to the new court order. The upshot is that the High Court will conduct a full review on 17 September.

It could uphold Lamola’s decision to extradite Chang to Mozambique where he would eventually stand trial on charges including abuse of his office, violation of the budget laws, money laundering, and membership of a criminal association.

Or the court could decide instead to extradite him to the US. A third possibility is that the court could send the matter back to Lamola to reconsider his decision to extradite Chang to Mozambique.

This will certainly delay Chang’s appearance as a witness in the current case before the Maputo High Court in which 19 defendants are facing charges linked to the “hidden debts”, including Ndambi Guebuza, the oldest son of former President Armando Guebuza, and the former head of the Security and Intelligence Service (SISE), Gregorio Leao.

Source: AIM