Mozambique: Court dismisses lawyer for helping secret services – Lusa report

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Mozambique: Court dismisses lawyer for helping secret services – Lusa report

7:43 CAT | 19 Oct 2021

Photo: TVM

The Maputo City Judicial Court on Tuesday ruled out Alexandre Chivale from the defence of the former director of Economic Intelligence of the Mozambican secret service António Carlos do Rosario because the lawyer is a secret service collaborator.

Baptista granted a request from the Mozambican public prosecutor’s office, which asked the court to remove Alexandre Chivale from the defence of the case of the hidden debts, alleging incompatibility because the lawyer is reportedly a collaborator of the secret service.

Former director of economic intelligence at the State Intelligence and Security Service (SISE) and defendant António Carlos do Rosario said a week ago that his lawyer in the hidden debts case, Alexandre Chivale, is a collaborator with the secret services.

Rosario was responding to questioning by the public prosecutor in the case, Ana Sheila Marrengula.

On Tuesday, during the questions before the resumption of questioning of the accused, Marrengula asked the court that Chivale be prevented from continuing to defend his constituent, considering that the lawyer is in a situation of serious incompatibility because he is acting in a case that opposes the state while also being a SISE collaborator.

“All of us present here, surely, recall that the defendant António Carlos do Rosário declared in this trial, and it is recorded in the competent minutes that Alexandre Chivale is a SISE collaborator,” he said.

Following the decision to prevent Chivale from continuing to work as a lawyer in the case, the judge told António Carlos do Rosário to appoint another lawyer or wait for the court to choose a public defender.

Judge Efigénio Baptista also ordered the lawyer to leave the house where he lives and hand over the keys within five days after the Public Prosecutor pointed out that the property was seized because it is owned by Rosário and was acquired with bribes from the hidden debt money.

Reacting to the court order preventing him from intervening in the trial of the so-called ‘hidden debts’ case, Alexandre Chivale said that it is an expected decision and that it aims to condition the defence of the former director of SISE’s Economic Intelligence.

Chivale is also part of the team of lawyers of Ndambi Guebuza, defendant and eldest son of former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza.

In the same case, Chivale is also defending Inês Moiane, Armando Guebuza’s private secretary, and the defendant’s nephew, Elias Moiane.

The Mozambican Bar Association (OAM), which is acting in the case as assistant to the public prosecutor, said that it was up to its National Council to decide on the removal of Chivale from the case.

The Mozambican courts have accused the 19 defendants in the main hidden debts case of forming a gang and embezzling $2.7 billion (€2.28 billion) from the Mozambican state – a figure the prosecutors say is higher than the $2.2 billion so far known in the case – raised from international banks through guarantees provided by the government.

The hidden debts were contracted between 2013 and 2014 from the British subsidiaries of investment banks Credit Suisse and VTB by Mozambican state companies Proindicus, Ematum and MAM.

The loans were secretly endorsed by the Frelimo government, led by the president at the time, Armando Guebuza, without the knowledge of parliament or the Administrative Court.

Source: Lusa