Ibraimo Mbaruco: Locked up or shot? – Carta de Moçambique

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Ibraimo Mbaruco: Locked up or shot? – Carta de Moçambique

3:50 CAT | 22 Apr 2020

File photo: Sala da Paz

Fourteen days after his disappearance in Palma on April 7, suspicion is growing that community radio station journalist Ibraimo Abú Mbaruco was shot by members of the Defence and Security Forces for alleged collaboration with terrorists operating in the north of Cabo Delgado, ‘Carta de Moçambique’ reports.

On that day, at around 7:00 p.m., Ibraimo Mbaruco sent messages to colleagues saying he was being abducted by military personnel. Some, however, insist that the journalist is still being held in a barracks in Mueda, where captured terrorists and their alleged collaborators are reputedly detained and tortured.

The suspicion that he was shot is founded only on circumstantial evidence and scattered testimonies, and also that the FDS ‘modus operandi’ in Cabo Delgado is allegedly marked by assaults and extra-judicial executions of those suspected of collaborating with terrorists, and alleged constant assaults on civilians, either in their homes or on the street.

A member of the FDS confirmed to ‘Carta’, as an eyewitness, that Mbaruco was taken by the military, saying that the journalist was “caught in the act”. “They were (?) on a football field. The journalist left and went to a location and began to communicate, saying that ‘you can go to the barracks to attack; there are no people out there (…) ’”.

The source said the journalist was arrested and handed over to the State Security and Information Service (SISE), and that the SISE had allegedly found exchanges with terrorists on his phone. This soldier claims that Mbaruco was “shot down” because the military does not trust the justice. “If he had been taken to the police and the courts, he could be released in no time” The source added that, under interrogation, Mbaruco named an SISE agent as a terrorist informant.

Police authorities have been quiet on the matter. Last week, Augusto Guta, spokesman for the PRM provincial command in Cabo Delgado, said he had information that Ibraimo Abú Mbaruco had been killed, but that further information was needed.

Source: Carta de Moçambique