Mozambique: Judge in ‘hidden debts’ case rules defendants to forfeit property

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Mozambique: Judge in ‘hidden debts’ case rules defendants to forfeit property

10:51 CAT | 08 Dec 2022

Photo: O País

The court in Maputo handling the trial relating to Mozambique’s ‘hidden debts’ on Wednesday ruled that the state should seize property deemed to be “proceeds of crime” held by the 11 defendants convicted in the case.

The judge, Efigénio Baptista, ordered that Ndambi Guebuza, a son of former president of Mozambique, Armando Guebuza, be stripped of property he acquired in Mozambique and South Africa, luxury vehicles and bank accounts.

“At the date of the facts, the defendant Armando Ndambi Guebuza was not carrying out any activity with remuneration compatible with the life of luxury he led,” stressed Baptista.

Also a former director of the State Information and Security Services (SISE), Gregório Leão, and his wife, Ângela Leão, saw the judge order their property forfeit.

A former director of Economic Intelligence, António Carlos do Rosário, lost a hotel, several properties and bank accounts.

Bruno Langa, a personal friend of Ndambi Guebuza, forfeits property, vehicles, computers, mobile phones and a gun he had without a license to carry.

Maria Inês Moiane, Armando Guebuza’s private secretary, and Renato Matusse, a former political advisor of Armando Guebuza, are also to forfeit properties and bank accounts.

Teófilo Nhangumele loses property, shares in a commercial company, vehicles and bank accounts.

The former director of the SISE studies office, Cipriano Mutota, forfeits lorries that he had bought with money from the hidden debt scheme, and since he sold the vehicles, he will have to financially compensate the state.

The judge also decreed the loss of improvements made to a plot of land belonging to Sérgio Namburete and the loss of a computer belonging to Fabião Mabunda.

Baptista ruled that the defendants who have dissipated assets acquired with money from the hidden debt scheme will have to reimburse the state for the value of those assets.

“If the asset existed, we would have to confiscate it, but as it does not exist, it has to be paid in cash,” he explained.

The judge in the trial, the biggest corruption case in the history of Mozambique, had earlier sentenced six of the 19 defendants to 12 years in prison, the highest sentence handed down on Wednesday, the seventh and final day of the reading of the verdict in Maputo.

Four other defendants were sentenced to 11 years in prison and one was given 10 years, the lowest sentence.

The judge also sentenced Ndambi Guebuza, Gregório Leão and António Carlos do Rosário to pay a further $2.8 billion (€2.6 billion euros) in damages.

The amount demanded from those three defendants is equivalent to the $2.7 billion plus interest that the court found corresponded to the bribes that the defendants received and to the property damages suffered by the Mozambican state, with the contracting of the loans from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia, with sovereign guarantees for around that amount.

Source: Lusa