Matola council member alleges “political persecution”

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Matola council member alleges “political persecution”

8:12 CAT | 19 Jan 2017

A member of the Municipal Council in the southern Mozambican city of Matola, Andre Chacha, has accused members of his own party, the ruling Frelimo Party, of conspiring to remove him from office.

Last week, Renato Muluega, the head of the group of the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) in the Matola Municipal Assembly, declared that Chacha had been sentenced to eight years imprisonment by the Maputo Higher Appeals Court, and so should not continue to serve as the Counsellor for Transport on the Municipal Council.

Cited in Wednesday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, Chacha claimed that Frelimo members had leaked a copy of the court ruling to the MDM. The matter reached the media, he claimed, because of “political persecution” involving members of his own party, who supposedly paid the MDM 350,000 meticais (about 5,020 US dollars, at current exchange rates) to damage his image.

“It’s been proved that it was members of Frelimo, my party”, he declared. “A week before the document (i.e. the court ruling) was published, I received a tip-off that a dinner had been held to assassinate my character”.

Chacha’s lawyer, Damiao Cumbana, said the MDM’s denunciation made no sense because Chacha was appealing to the Supreme Court, and the case was therefore not concluded.

“The ruling from the Appeals Court obliged us to take the case to the Supreme Court”, said Cumbana. “Now we are waiting for the decision of the Supreme Court”. Until the Supreme Court decided otherwise, his client must be considered as innocent.

Chacha was first tried by the Maputo City Court, in a case of theft of state funds, in which the main accused was his former wife, Edite Chacha, who received a twelve year sentence.

Chacha said he had nothing to do with any theft, and appealed against his three year sentence. The Maputo Higher Appeals Court disagreed, considered him an accomplice, and increase the sentence to eight years.

In March 2015, Chacha’s appeal was sent upwards, to the Supreme Court. He told the paper “I never received State money from anybody illicitly in my personal account. That’s why I’m appealing. This has nothing to do with me”.

“It makes no sense, in a case where people who did receive money are acquitted, that I, who received nothing, am accused of being an accomplice”, Chacha declared.

Source: AIM