Mozambique: Authorities ‘did not use all resources’ to find kidnap victim

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Mozambique: Authorities ‘did not use all resources’ to find kidnap victim

3:10 CAT | 10 Dec 2018

Photo: Lusa

Salomé Sebastião, the wife of a Portuguese man who was kidnapped in 2016 in Mozambique, said on Friday that the police authorities did not use all the resources possible to find him, including offers from the Portuguese authorities.

“It is a fact: if help from the Portuguese police was offered during the investigations and it is not accepted, and the process is closed, then surely they did not use all the resources available,” she said at a media conference in Mozambique’s capital Maputo.

The wife of Sebastião was speaking a day after handing in a petition to the Mozambican parliament, calling for a clarification of the case that was closed by the authorities and which his family claim to have clues that could lead him to be found. The family of the Portuguese businessman recently presented a third petition to parliament to call for the Mozambican authorities to accept judicial cooperation proposed by Portugal.

Sebastião went missing on 29 July 2016 at a service station in Nhamapadza, in the district of Maríngue, where he was kidnapped by armed men.

According to his family, the kidnappers used his bank cards and were able to withdraw €4,000 before his accounts were blocked.

His family has called for the Mozambican government, the speaker of the Mozambican parliament and the court of justice as well as the Portuguese authorities to intervene.

Portugal has offered judicial cooperation in an effort to find Américo Sebastião, but the Mozambican authorities turned down the offer.

Portugal’s government recently expressed its concern to the ambassador of Mozambique in Lisbon about the increasing level of insecurity Portuguese citizens were facing in the African country.

Source: Lusa