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Mozambique: Authorities order exhumation of body of kidnapped former Renamo MP
6:57 CAT | 30 Dec 2020
Photo: Sala da Paz
The authorities in Manica, central Mozambique, ordered the exhumation, for examination, of the body of former Renamo deputy Sofrimento Matequenha, found dead Thursday, a week after his abduction.
A multi-sector team, which involves the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Health and the National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) in Manica, is due to move to the area where the body of the politician was discovered and buried by peasants, said Mário Arnaça, police spokesman in Manica.
“There is ongoing coordination work between the police and the family of the politician with a view to exhuming this body to determine the causes of death and clarify the case, as well as allowing a decent grave,” he said, without advancing the date for the exhumation.
The body of the politician, kidnapped on 13 December at his residence, was discovered by peasants, abandoned, with signs of torture and covered with tree branches in the woods of Pindanganga, a village in the interior of Gondola (Manica), about 60 kilometres northeast of the place of his abduction, family members told Lusa on Sunday.
“The body was found in a military confrontation zone, near a base of the self-proclaimed Renamo Military Junta [a dissident group of the main opposition party accused of leading attacks on roads and villages in the centre of the country],” invaded and occupied by the defence and security forces last week, Mário Arnaça said.
“There are strong indications that the kidnappers belong to the Renamo Military Junta”, he added.
Also read: Mozambique: Police deny involvement in suspected kidnapping of ex-Renamo MP Sofrimento Matequenha
According to the authorities, despite the fact that the area where the body was found is an area of armed confrontation, between the Renamo dissident group and the defence and security forces, the police will guarantee “all security” for the exhumation of the body, in order to respond to a request from the family of the politician who feared for his safety.
Sofrimento Matequenha was kidnapped from his residence in the early evening of 13 December, according to the family’s denunciation.
An armed group, wearing police uniforms broke into the politician’s house in the Nhamaonha district, a suburb of Chimoio, the provincial capital of Manica, and took him in a black car, with tinted windows, the former deputy’s wife reported.
Also read: Former Renamo deputy found dead, “with signs of torture”, in a forest in central Mozambique – Lusa
Source: Lusa
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