More than 3,000 Mozambicans arrested abroad

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More than 3,000 Mozambicans arrested abroad

11:19 CAT | 15 May 2017

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At least 3,012 citizens of Mozambican nationality have been arrested and are serving sentences abroad, mostly in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Drug trafficking, with its expectation of easy money, seems to attract most Mozambicans.

South Africa’s already overcrowded prisons registered the entry of 2,979 additional prisoners during the year past.

Without detailing the length of sentence they are serving, the latest report from the Mozambican attorney general indicated that 2,886 Mozambican’s are serve prison terms in neighbouring South Africa for illegal residence, robbery, armed robbery, rape and murder.

In neighbouring Zimbabwe, 65 Mozambicans have been arrested and 20 are serving sentences ranging from 15 months to 80 years for robbery. Nine, convicted for rape, are serving sentences ranging from 16 months to 15 years.

Fifteen nationals are detained in Portugal, 11 sentenced to prison terms ranging from 6 months to 22 years.

In Malawi, 12 Mozambicans are serving sentences for crimes of theft, human organ trafficking, voluntary homicide and arson.

Drug trafficking also appears to attract Mozambicans internationally, with eleven detained in India, four in Thailand serving sentences between 19 and 25 years in prison, two serving sentences of 6 years in Ethiopia, one serving a sentence of 25 years in Indonesia, another sentenced in Singapore, and an unknown number serving sentences in China.

Prison overcrowding in Mozambique up by 20 percent

Meanwhile, Mozambican jails remain overcrowded, a concern expressed by Attorney General Beatriz Buchili who revealed that on December 31, 2016, “the country’s penitentiaries had a total of 18,182 inmates, compared with 15,203 in the previous period”.

“Of the total of inmates, 11,772, representing 65 percent, were serving sentences, while 6,410, representing 35 percent were in preventive custody,” the attorney general said.

Most of the offenders serving prison sentences are in the province of Nampula (2,529), in the city and province of Maputo (2,442), Manica (1,599) and Zambézia (1,027).

Construction and rehabilitation of prisons in seven districts and in Maputo city and province has not been sufficient to alleviate overcrowding. In addition, “we continue to have a shortage of prisons at the district level, and the situation is even more difficult at the level of administrative posts where there are not even cells at police stations, which leads to a violation of detainees’ human rights,” Buchili said.

Although the new penal code has introduced alternatives to imprisonment which should alleviate overcrowding, “the challenges to an effective implementation [of these new alternative measures and penalties] persist,” she said.

Source: A Verdade