Mozambique: Defendants contest seizure of assets – Lusa

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Defendants contest seizure of assets – Lusa

6:10 CAT | 13 Apr 2022

Photo: O País

Three defendants in the leading case of hidden debts in Mozambique contested in court on Tuesday the public prosecutor’s request for preventive seizure of assets as it believes the assets were bought with money from the loans.

António Carlos do Rosário, former director of economic intelligence at the State Intelligence and Security Service (SISE), the Mozambican secret service. Ângela Leão, wife of the former director-general of SISE, and Inês Moiane, former private secretary of former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza, rejected the request during the first session of the hearing on the preventive seizure of assets.

Rosário said in court that some of the properties listed by the prosecution did not belong to him, and others were purchased before the contracts for the supply of goods and services using money from the hidden debts were consummated.

Ângela Leão denied holding assets in a company in which her husband is a shareholder and said that one of the flats referred to in the seizure request was bought before the hidden debts.

Inês Moiane contested the public prosecutors’ request, saying the assets subject to seizure request are not personal. They belonged to her family.

Moiane declared that the assets were registered in her name by the family’s choice.

The adversarial debate on the preventive seizure request continues on Wednesday with the hearing of three more defendants.

The sentence in the case of the hidden debts is scheduled for 1 August.

In its final arguments, the Mozambican public prosecutor’s office asked the court for the maximum sentence for eight of the 19 defendants, close to the maximum sentence for 10 defendants and the acquittal of only one.

The Mozambican public prosecutor also asked the court that the defendants be ordered to pay compensation of US$2.7 billion (€2.3 billion), corresponding to the total hidden debts, plus interest of US$850.5 billion (€779,000) calculated until 2019.

The loans worth around €2.3 billion were endorsed by the Government without the knowledge of Parliament or the Administrative Tribunal.

Source: Lusa