Mahamudo Amurane murder: Unsolved after three years – Mozambique

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Mahamudo Amurane murder: Unsolved after three years – Mozambique

1:19 CAT | 06 Oct 2020

Family and friends visited Amurane's grave this Sunday, [Photo: DW]

Former Nampula mayor Mahamudo Amurane was murdered on October 4, 2017, but the perpetrators of the crime remain unidentified. His relatives are still waiting for clarification, and justice organs says they too await progress.

Citizens of Nampula, in northern Mozambique, are indignant at the lack of progress in solving the murder of Mahamudo Amurane, then-president of the local municipal council, in the late afternoon of October 4, 2017.

Maria Moreno, one of the citizens who spoke to DW, said: “We today [Sunday, October 4] are remembering that date, a tragic event. We find it strange that we still don’t know who the author was, but sometimes the pain is mixed with hope (of clarification) and life carries on.”

The interviewee says the setback in the city’s fortunes are in part related to the barbaric murder of the mayor. “If this dream had not been interrupted, the city of Nampula really was on a very fast development path, an example not only for Mozambique, but for the whole of Southern Africa. Dr. Mahamudo Amurane used to say that we would be the best southern African city. And I believe that, yes, if they had allowed him to reach the end of his [first] mandate and repeat the mandate, as the indicators suggested, we would surely have arrived there,” she argued.

Court awaits trial

The judicial authorities in Nampula have yet to say when those already officially named as suspects [arguidos] in the case will go to trial, but promise that work is underway.

Speaking off the record, the presiding judge of Nampula Judicial Court, Alberto José Assane, said on Sunday (04-10) during the ceremonies marking the anniversary of the Rome General Peace Agreements, that “the case has not yet reached the court; it is still in the attorney’s office”. “That is why we cannot give details.”

But journalist and social activist Juma Aiuba believes that there will be no favourable outcome to this case, and that ‘the guilt will die single’ [meaning that no one will ver be found responsible].

“Cases of this type are never clarified [in Mozambique]. Amurane’s death was yet another political murder, and these types of crime are usually organised crimes. Amurane’s death has been stuffed in the drawer, part of our archive of unclarified deaths,” he said.

Who was behind this crime?

But who, after all, would be interested in the death of Mahamudo Amurane, DW asked Juma Aiuba.

“In terms of moral authorship, anyone could be interested, be it Frelimo, Renamo or the MDM. Business interests could also have ordered Amurane’s death. But the simple fact that the state is unable to manage [the case], bring it to a conclusion and hold the criminals accountable, that puts the blame squarely on the state,” he replied.

DW tried several times to contact Mahamudo Amurane’s family – his widow, brothers and nephews – to ascertain their level of satisfaction with the investigation process, but none of them agreed to record an interview. Family members did however acknowledge that they were still waiting for the investigation to proceed, and the perpetrators to be held accountable.

To mark the third anniversary of the death of the first opposition mayor of Nampula, family and friends on Sunday (04.10) deposited wreaths at his grave site.

Source: Deutsche Welle