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FILE - For illustration purposes only .Beatriz Buchili was speking in the city of Praia, where she is on an official visit to invitation of her Cape Verdean counterpart, José Luís Landim. [File photo: MInistério da Justiça de Cabo Verde]
The Mozambican Attorney General (PGR), Beatriz Buchili, promised today to share documents in time to avoid the annulment of the hidden debts case underway at the Commercial Court of London.
“I do not know if it is at risk, because we are currently in the process of conducting the interlocutory phase of disclosing documents and we are working in that direction,” the PGR said in the city of Praia, where she is on an official visit to invitation of her Cape Verdean counterpart, José Luís Landim.
In March, a British judge publicly considered overturning the ongoing hidden debts case at the Commercial Court in London due to Mozambique’s failure to share relevant documents in preparation for the trial in October.
In an opinion, Judge Robin Knowles criticized the lack of involvement of British lawyers representing the Republic of Mozambique in the process of selecting official documents and urged the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office (PGR) to provide greater access.
“It is true that it is a process that has to be collected from several institutions and we have procedural deadlines, but we are coping to be able to comply with the legal procedures,” the PGR said.
Beatriz Buchili said that the last interlocutory hearing would take place at the end of July, and that she believed that Mozambique would be able to comply with the procedures.
During a preliminary hearing, the English judge indicated that Mozambique was not in “compliance with disclosure obligations, in particular with documents held by the Office of the President [of the Republic], by SISE [State Intelligence Services] and by the Council of State”.
According to the British magistrate, these state bodies were not allowing either the PGR or British lawyers access to select relevant documents.
The disclosure of documentary evidence by all parties, he stressed, is essential to “ensure the justice of the trial” and a final decision.
The judge mentioned in particular Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi, on whom authorization for access to confidential state documents depends, but who is also named in this process.
“If I need to exercise my power of annulment to ensure compliance with the Republic’s obligations and disclosure duties, I will do so, because it is my duty to guarantee the justice of the trial,” the judge stressed.
The magistrate said that he would reserve the right to annul the case at any time, but gave the PGR of Mozambique the option to try again to access the necessary documents and provide them to the other parties involved.
The Commercial Court, which forms part of the High Court in London, is scheduled to begin its main trial on the validity of the debts on October 3.
At the origin of the case is a lawsuit initiated by the PGR on behalf of the Republic of Mozambique against Credit Suisse and Prinvinvest to try to cancel part of the more than US$2,700 million (€2,600 million) of debt contracted between 2013 and 2014 by public companies to buy tuna fishing boats and marine security equipment and services.
The loans were guaranteed by the Mozambican government of Armando Guebuza, but without the knowledge of parliament and the Administrative Tribunal, which led to the denomination of “hidden debts”.
Several senior civil servants and state officials are named in the process, such as former president Armando Guebuza, former finance minister Manuel Chang – detained in South Africa – and the current head of state, Filipe Nyusi, who was defence minister at the time.
In a trial relating to the same case that concluded in December in Maputo, 11 of the 19 defendants were sentenced to prison sentences of 10 to 12 years, and three of them will have to pay compensation to the state totalling €2.6 billion. The three targeted are Ndambi Guebuza, son of former president Armando Guebuza, and two former SISE leaders, Gregório Leão and António Carlos do Rosário (former SISE general director and former SISE head of economic intelligence, respectively), who both received sentences of 12 years in prison.
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