MDM’s head of list for Quelimane summoned by SERNIC – Watch

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MDM’s head of list for Quelimane summoned by SERNIC – Watch

4:25 CAT | 12 Sep 2018

Photo: Miramar

The National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) in Zambézia summoned the head of list of the Mozambican Democratic Movement (MDM) in Quelimane, Rogério Warowaro, for questioning.

The hearing should have taken place yesterday, September 11, but Watowaro has told Miramar that he asked for it to be postponed to September 27.

The MDM candidate for Quelimane mayor in the October 10 local elections says the probable reason for being subpoenaed is a series of events which took place on 29 April, during the voter registration campaign.

Warowaro and other MDM members “intercepted, as a party, a truck full of young people coming from the district of Nicoadala” who were supposedly on their way to [illegally] register to vote in Quelimane, he explains.

The police were called, and the MDM members were threatened. Emotions were running high on both sides, Warowaro says, with “those young people [MDM] defending themselves from the police beating [‘chamboco’]” as he explains in the video below.

Warowaro does not rule out the possibility of political persecution and intimidation. “They are using state institutions to intimidate us,” he says. He fails to understand, he says, how, in a situation where there were many young people involved, he is the only one summoned to testify and the only one officially named as a suspect, However, Warowaro says that he will “respect the authorities and go to SERNIC on the 27th to hear what they have to tell him”.

The MDM’s head of list adds that the party’s legal office has been alerted and is watching the progress of this case, which has passed through the Public Prosecutor’s office and is now in SERNIC.

Miramar reports that, after the hearing, the case will be returned to the Prosecutor’s Office for subsequent steps.