Hidden debts: Discussion next week on seizure of assets

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Hidden debts: Discussion next week on seizure of assets

8:08 CAT | 06 Apr 2022

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

The Maputo City Court will decide next week on whether to seize more assets from those accused of taking bribes from the Abu Dhabi based group Privinvest, reports Tuesday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”.

11 of the 18 people charged with various financial offences as part of the scandal of Mozambique’s “hidden debts” stand to lose assets (such as vehicles and real estate) which the prosecution argues were acquired illicitly – from the bribes paid by Privinvest.

The assets will be seized temporarily, until the court reaches a verdict on the guilt or innocence of the accused.

If the assets are definitively seized, they could go towards compensating the Mozambican state for the losses caused by the hidden debts.

The prosecution has demanded compensation of 2.9 billion US dollars. This sum is the entire 2.07 billion dollars of loans obtained by the three fraudulent, security-linked companies Proindicus, Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management) from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia, through the use of illicit state loan guarantees, plus interest.

Judge Efigenio Baptista had hoped to deal with the seizure of assets in February. But by 24 February, the date set to discuss the question, the defence lawyers had not received all the documents referring to the compensation claimed.

The prosecution had not yet gathered all the documents that tie the accused to each of the properties it wished to confiscate.

For example, the prosecution hopes to seize 40 buildings owned by Antonio Carlos do Rosario, the former head of economic intelligence in the security service, SISE, or by companies that he controls. But to do this, it must show documents such as title deeds, which prove that Rosario is indeed the owner.

So Baptista announced that the prosecution’s seizure orders will be discussed at a date to be announced later by – this has proved to be after the prosecution and the defence summed up their cases in early March.

Complicating matters was a demand by Jaime Sunda and Salvador Nkamati, lawyers for defendant Renato Matusse, once a political adviser to former President Armando Geubuza, that Baptista should be barred from hearing the discussion on assets.

The Higher Appeals Court (TSR), however, has rejected the claims from Sunda and Nkamati, and so Baptista will continue to judge all aspects of the case. The TSR threw out the appeal on the grounds that the two lawyers had not presented any convincing reason for removing Baptista from the case.

The discussion on asset seizure should not affect the timetable for the rest of the trial. Baptista is still expected to deliver his verdict and sentence on 1 August.

Rosario is supposedly the owner of 30 flats in a building known as “Xenon Urban Apartments” on Julius Nyerere Avenue in the heart of Maputo. In the same building, Rosario owns a shop on the ground floor, an auditorium, an office and a meetings room.

The prosecution says that Rosario also owns a central Maputo house, on Ahmed Sekou Toure Avenue, five apartments and a warehouse in the outlying Maputo suburb of Zimpeto, and four buildings in the central city of Quelimane.

He is also the registered owner of a two storey building, still under construction, in the upmarket neighbourhood of Belo Horizonte, just outside Maputo. He holds the rights to 16 plots of land in Belo Horizonte, one in the Maputo coastal suburb of Costa do Sol, and one in Pebane district, in Zambezia province.

The prosecution also wants to seize 16 plots of land registered in the name of Renato Matusse, and a house owned by Matusse in Limpopo district, in the southern province of Gaza.

From Ines Moiane, Guebuza’s former private secretary, the prosecution wants to seize a house in the Maputo suburb of Triunfo, a plot of land in the Polana Canico neighbourhood and an events hall named “Quinta Happy” (“Happy Farm”) in Matola-Rio, just outside the capital.

Also on the list are three buildings registered in the name of Cipriano Mutota, the former director of the SISE Studies Office, two in Maputo city, and one in Marracuene district, in Maputo province.

Of the other accused, Teofilo Nhangumele, Bruno Langa, Fabiao Mabunda and Zulficar Ali each stand to lose one house each.

Source: AIm