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On 11 December, the South African High Court will consider Mozambique’s request for authorisation to appeal against the sentence ordering the Ramaphosa government to decide on the extradition of former Mozambican minister Manuel Chang, a judicial source told Lusa.
According to the source, the justice minister’s final pronouncement on the extradition of Mozambique’s former finance minister will depend on the court’s decision on 11 November.
On 1 November, the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng Division, in Johannesburg, ordered the current Minister of Justice of South Africa, Ronald Lamola, to determine whether former Mozambican minister Manuel Chang should be extradited to his country or to the United States.
On 13 July, Ronald Lamola requested, following his appointment by South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, that the decision of former minister Michael Masutha be reviewed and overturned as contrary to the provisions of the South African Extradition Law.
Masutha announced the decision to extradite Manuel Chang to Mozambique on the last day in office.
In Masutha’s term of office, Mozambique’s former finance minister faced two extradition requests – one from the US and the other from Mozambique – where he enjoyed parliamentary immunity at the time.
Since then, former minister Chang, who is a high ranking member of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo), the party in power in Mozambique since 1975, has resigned as an MP and lost his immunity, Verónica Macamo, the speaker of the Mozambican parliament, announced on 24 July.
However, the South African government maintains that the immunity of the former Mozambican minister “still persists” as an impediment to legal proceedings in Mozambique in the case of hidden debts, Johan van Schalkwyk, the South African state lawyer told Lusa on 16 October.
Manuel Chang, who is expected to stand trial in a New York court, has been detained in South Africa since 29 December 2018, at the request of the United States Court, for fraud, corruption and money laundering in an international fraud of $2.2 billion (about €2 billion).
Manuel Chang’s arrest and extradition request is related to his role in providing financial guarantees from the former Mozambican government, chaired by former President Armando Guebuza, to create the Mozambican public companies Ematum, Proindicus and MAM, for maritime safety and fishing, without the consent of parliament or the Administrative Court of Mozambique.
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