Mozambique: Journalists barred from Dondo trial today

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Mozambique: Journalists barred from Dondo trial today

3:25 CAT | 07 Aug 2020

File photo: DW

The Dondo Judicial Court in Sofala province today prevented journalists from attending the evidence-gathering session of the trial of six people accused of conspiracy in central Mozambique.

Journalists were already in the courtroom when, 10 minutes after the trial started, the judge in the case, Carlitos Teófilo, asked them to leave, saying that the session would address “sensitive matter”.

Experts from the central directorate of the National Criminal Investigation Service [SERNIC] were expected to give evidence in today’s session.

The trial began on July 10, with the six defendants accused of being associated with the self-proclaimed Military Junta of the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), a dissident splinter group of Mozambique’s main opposition party, which is accused by the authorities of carrying out armed attacks that have killed 24 people in central Mozambique since August last year.

Among the defendants is former Renamo deputy Sandura Ambrósio.

The Mozambican public prosecutor alleges that Sandura Ambrósio recruited men for the Military Junta and supported the group financially. The group is led by Mariano Nhongo, a former Renamo guerrilla leader.

Sandura Ambrósio has denied that he was ever involved in recruiting young people for the group led by Nhongo, and his legal defence asked for his provisional release on bail, a request the court refused.

Speaking to journalists in the city of Beira from an undisclosed location in central Mozambique on July 22 of this year, Renamo dissident leader Mariano Nhongo also denied that Sandura Ambrósio was the group’s financier, alleging that the six were being detained for political reasons.

“Sandura was detained because he led demonstrations in Beira against the will of Ossufo Momade [the current Renamo president],” said Nhongo, referring to an episode in February 2019, when party members in Beira demonstrated against alleged violations of the party’s statutes, the Renamo president having decided that delegates would be appointed by him rather than being elected.

Sandura Ambrósio was a Renamo deputy in the parliamentary term that ended in January, but had already announced his departure from the party in 2019 to join the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM), the country’s third-largest parliamentary party.

The former deputy ran for another term in the parliamentary elections of October last year, standing for the MDM in Sofala, but failed to win re-election.

The self-proclaimed Military Junta constes the Renamo leadership and the peace agreement signed in August last year and is accused of carrying out attacks targeting security and civilian forces in villages and on some road sections in the central region of the country.

In addition to Sandura, António Bauase, Domingos Marime, Gabriel José Domingos, Eugénio Joaquim Domingos and Aníva Bernardo are defendants in the case.

Source: Lusa