Mozambique: Civil society hails victory against impunity in SA extradition case

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Mozambique: Civil society hails victory against impunity in SA extradition case

3:10 CAT | 09 Jun 2022

File photo: Lusa

– The Budget Monitoring Forum (FMO), a Mozambican civil society platform, called the decision by the South African Constitutional Court to reject the appeal request on the extradition of former Finance Minister Manuel Chang a “victory against impunity.

On Tuesday, South Africa’s Constitutional Court rejected a request for an appeal in this instance filed by the Attorney General’s Office of the decision to extradite former Finance Minister Manuel Chang to the US, which seeks to try the former governor as part of the case of the hidden debts.

“It is a relief for millions of Mozambicans who were pushed into poverty by the corrupt actions led by Manuel Chang,” FMO coordinator Adriano Nuvunga told Lusa.

He said that the position of South Africa’s highest judicial body sends a signal to the Mozambican leadership that “corruption is paid for with justice and not with impunity.

“The political leadership knows that corruption is paid for with justice, it may take time, but it is paid for,” said the FMO coordinator.

Adriano Nuvunga said that Mozambican civil society would “continue to litigate” for Manuel Chang to be tried in the US, accusing the Mozambican justice system of not having the conditions to hold the guilty parties responsible in the case of the hidden debts.

In its ruling, the Constitutional Court of South Africa “concluded that the request should be dismissed with costs as it is not in the interest of justice to hear him at this stage.

At the end of last year, the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office submitted a request for direct access to the South African Constitutional Court seeking a review of the decision by the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg to extradite former Mozambican minister, Manuel Chang, who has been in prison for three and a half years without trial in South Africa, to the US.

In Mozambique, Manuel Chang is the subject of an autonomous process related to the case of hidden debts.

In the main trial taking place in the country, 19 defendants are awaiting sentencing, scheduled for August.

Aged 63, Manuel Chang was arrested on 29 December 2018 at O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg en route to Dubai based on an international arrest warrant issued by the US on 27 December for his alleged involvement in the so-called hidden debts case.

According to South African prosecutors, Manuel Chang’s arrest was legal under the extradition treaty between the US and South Africa, signed in September 1999 in Washington.

Chang, three former Credit Suisse bankers and a Privinvest mediator, were detained at the request of US justice.

The investigation alleges that the US$2.7 billion (2.3 billion euros) financing operation, according to Mozambican prosecutors, to create the Mozambican public companies Ematum, Proindicus and MAM during the mandate of President Armando Guebuza is a vast case of corruption and money laundering.

PMA/ADB // ADB.

Source: Lusa