Maputo's Xipamanine market without water
Noticias reports that a strong contingent of the Police, including the Canine Unit, reinforces security at the BO today to ensure the tranquillity of the court session. Also, several plainclothes agents who have positioned themselves inside and outside the OR are positioned, adds the same source. [Photo: Noticias]
The shooters, travelling in two vehicles, fled after prison guards responded to the attack with shots, they added.
The shots left marks on the prison gate.
Prison authorities believe that the objective was to “sabotage the electrical system”, since most of the shots were directed towards the electrical transformer.
The prison premises were chosen in August to host the ‘hidden debts’ trial, which has been going on for six months, as it has space for the tent that houses those involved in the process.
The electrical transformer shot at is the one that supplies electricity for the sessions and their live broadcast on Mozambican television.
Read: Miscreants fire shots at the BO main gate and transformer, throw smokee grenade – O País report
Testimony of Guebuza
The eagerly awaited testimony by former president Armando Guebuza is the last to be heard before closing arguments.
Guebuza is the first former head of state to testify in court in the country’s history.
The Public Prosecutor’s Office listed Armando Guebuza as a declarant because, as President of the Republic, he was also head of the government that issued the guarantees that allowed the Mozambican Tuna Company (Ematum), Proindicus and Mozambique Asset Management (MAM) to borrow US$2.7 billion (€2.3 billion) from foreign banks.
The former president will testify after his eldest son, Armando Ndambi Guebuza, was questioned as a defendant in the case. Ndambi Guebuza told the court that his father’s successor, the current Mozambican president, Filipe Nyusi, should also be heard, because he was Minister of National Defence and coordinator of the Mozambican Defence and Security Forces command that approved the Integrated Monitoring and Protection System (SIMP) of the exclusive economic zone.
And Filipe Nyusi?
The prosecution considers that the SIMP was the pretext found by the authors of the hidden debts for the mobilisation of the equivalent of 2.3 billion euros.
Other defendants also pointed to Filipe Nyusi as having had an active participation in the approval of the SIMP and in the indication of the banks that disbursed the financing.
In view of these statements, Judge Efigénio Baptista said that the investigation into the case found no evidence of a crime committed by either Filipe Nyusi or Armando Guebuza, adding that the accounts of the former head of state and his family had been traced.
The hidden debts were contracted between 2013 and 2014 by Mozambican state-owned companies Proindicus, Ematum and MAM for tuna fishing and maritime protection projects.
The loans were guaranteed by the government of the Liberation Front of Mozambique (Frelimo), led by Armando Guebuza, without the knowledge of parliament or the Administrative Tribunal.
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