Matavel murder: First member of death squad testifies – AIM report

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Matavel murder: First member of death squad testifies – AIM report

4:15 CAT | 13 May 2020

One of the police officers accused of assassinating civil society and election observation activist Anastacio Matavel, in the southern city of Xai-Xai on 7 October last year, on Tuesday said he had not murdered Matavel, because he had not actually fired the fatal shots.

Seven people are in the dock in Xai-Xai, in the Gaza Provincial court, for their part in the murder, including the two surviving members of the police death squad, Euclidio Mapulasse and Edson Silica.

The death squad had five members, but as their getaway vehicle sped away from the scene of the murder, it was involved in a major traffic accident, in which two of the killers, Justino Chauque and Martins Wiliamo, died. Mapulasse and Silica were arrested, while the fifth man, Agapito Matavele, escaped and is still on the run.

Mapulasse was the first of the accused to give evidence when the trial began on Tuesday. According to the report of the trial in Wednesday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Mediafax”, he recognised that he had been in the car, but was reluctant to give details, answering many of the questions of Judge Ana Liquidao, with the words “I don’t know” or “I don’t remember”.

He said that the head of his platoon, Agapito Matavele, had told him, on 19 September, to “prepare for a mission”. Matavele took him off the normal shift rota, and ordered him to withdraw a pistol from the armoury of the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR – the Mozambican Riot Police), guarded by Justino Muchanga, who is also one of the accused.

Mapulasse claimed he did not know the nature of “the mission” until the fatal shots were fired. He did not open fire, he said, since he was in the back seat, sitting between Chauque and Wiliamo.

He said the order to shoot was given by Agapito Matavele. He saw Agapito and Wiliamo shoot their defenceless victim.

Asked about his meetings with the other four members of the death squad on 4, 5 and 6 October, he said they met “to drink beer”, first in the canteen of the Military Recruitment Centre, and then in an informal bar called “Xirico”. Also present at the first meeting, he said, was Tudelo Guirrego, commander of the Gaza provincial company of the police Special Operations Group (GOE), who has also been charged with the murder.

He denied his previous statement under interrogation that Guirrego had distributed tickets for buying fuel to members of the group. Mapulasse also claimed he did not know a man named Alfredo Chichongue: yet in his earlier interview with the prosecutor he said Chichongue appeared in the Xirico bar and gave them all caps and T-shirts for the election campaign of the ruling Frelimo Party.

Mapulasse refused to say whether he was still receiving his police wages and declined to give the court the number of his bank account.

According to the prosecution case, the five members of the squad all took pistols from the UIR armoury, except for Wiliamo, who received an AK-47 assault rifle.

On the day of the murder, the man driving the car, Edson Silica, picked up Mapulasse at his house. Another of the killers, Nobrega Chauque, had borrowed the car, a Toyota Marx X, from Ricardo Manganhe, a teacher in the town of Chibuto, who was buying the Toyota from the mayor of Chibuto, Henriques Machava. The car was still registered in Machava’s name at the time of the assassination.

Manganhe is accused of involvement in the murder – but Machava’s name has been removed from the list of the accused.

If Mapulasse thinks he can escape a guilty verdict merely because he did not pull the trigger, he may be in for an unpleasant surprise. Under Mozambican law all those who participated in the killing can be found guilty of first degree murder.

If precedent were needed, it can be found in the case of the murder of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso in 2000. The court found all three members of the death squad that killed Cardoso guilty as well as the three businessmen who ordered the assassination.

Source: AIM