Mozambique: Eleven anti-kidnapping police indicted for kidnapping

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Mozambique: Eleven anti-kidnapping police indicted for kidnapping

1:37 CAT | 13 Jul 2022

in file CoM

Mozambique’s Public Prosecutor’s Office has charged 11 officers from the Criminal Investigation Services’ anti-kidnapping brigade with trying to kidnap an alleged drug trafficker in Matola municipality, Maputo province.

“The preliminary hearings have ended, they have been indicted and the case is in court, awaiting the scheduling of the trial date,” said the spokesman for the Maputo Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, Jorge Chivindje, quoted by Radio Mozambique today.

According to the Public Prosecutor’s Office (PGR), the case occurred last year when the officers, who were off duty on the day, orchestrated an operation to pursue the alleged trafficker, who was involved in a road accident in the Khongolote neighbourhood of Matola municipality.

The Public Prosecutor’s Office believes that the officers intended to kidnap the dealer and seize her drugs and cashes she had in her car.

“They intended to seize goods, drugs and monetary values in the possession of the citizen, since she was engaged in trafficking and sale of drugs, having threatened and physically assaulted her, using Makarov and AK-47 type firearms,” according to a statement issued in February last year by the Public Prosecutor, cited by the electronic publication Carta de Moçambique.

The PGR said the officers used “privileged information,” violating professional principles and duties, as well as the “commitment and oath to serve the homeland and the State.

Of the 11 indicted officers, all now suspended, ten have been in prison since April 2021.

Some Mozambican cities, mainly the provincial capitals, have again been plagued since 2020 by a wave of kidnappings, targeting particularly businessmen or their relatives.

In an assessment on crime presented at the beginning of May, Mozambique’s attorney general said that kidnapping crimes have been increasing and criminal groups have cross-border ramifications, maintaining cells in countries such as South Africa.

The attorney general has admitted the involvement of magistrates, lawyers and police investigators in preparing the kidnappings.

Source: Lusa