Hidden debts: Former head of security service owned investment company

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Hidden debts: Former head of security service owned investment company

6:34 CAT | 27 Apr 2022

Illustrative photo: Lusa

The Maputo City Court confirmed on Tuesday that Gregorio Leão, the former head of the Security and Intelligence Service (SISE), is the sole owner of the company Alaba Investment.

As part of the trial of 18 people accused of financial crimes in connection with the scandal of Mozambique’s “hidden debts”, the court is investigating houses and other assets owned by the suspects. The prosecution has demanded that these assets be seized temporarily: if the accused are found guilty, the assets can be used to pay some of the compensation due to the Mozambican state.

Many of the houses and other properties are owned through companies. On 13 April, Leão categorically denied that he owns the houses and flats on the prosecution list. He said they belonged to a SISE front company, Alaba, and he had nothing to do with managing them.

Leão said Alaba is a SISE “operational vehicle”, and so he could reveal nothing about what it does. “I never gave instructions to the Alaba management”, he claimed.

But Leão’s name is on the documents setting up Alaba. It was Leão who had registered the company.

A former Alaba director, Bilal Sidat, told the court that originally the company had three shareholders – Leão, the former head of SISE economic intelligence, Antonio Carlos do Rosario, and lawyer Imran Issa. But not long after the company’s foundation, the shares belonging to Rosario and Issa were all transferred to Gregorio Leão, who thus ended up owning 100 per cent of Alaba.

Sidat claimed that his role in Alaba was minimal. He said Rosario had invited him onto the board merely to sign documents. He had never attended any Alaba meetings, and had nothing to do with finance.

But in 2019, Rosario (who was already under arrest) wanted to sell off the Alaba properties. For this, he needed signatures from board members. Both Sidat, and a second board member, Taibo da Silva Cadamo, refused to sign.

Sidat noted that the document was dated 2016, but he was only asked to sign it in 2019, a couple of days after Rosario’s arrest.

Likewise da Silva said he did not sign. But the copy of the document in the court’s possession appears to be signed by both men, and their signatures were recognized by a notary. But they both insisted that the signatures were forgeries. Da Silva said the forgers had even misspelt his name

“The signature is not mine. I had nothing to do with the sale of the properties”, declared Sidat.

Judge Efigenio Baptista said he had compared the signature on the sale document with an undoubtedly genuine signature by da Silva, on the minutes of his previous appearance in the court, and he agreed they did not seem to be penned by the same hand.

The hearing has been adjourned until next Tuesday, when the court will hear more witnesses on the nature of Alaba and its properties.

Source: AIM