Mozambique: Local court overrules PGR’s decision to shelve pigeon pea case – Lusa

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: Local court overrules PGR’s decision to shelve pigeon pea case – Lusa

12:47 CAT | 02 Feb 2024

in file CoM

The Nacala-Porto court has decided “not to follow” the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office (PGR), which had ordered the case over the dispute between RGL and the ETG conglomerate over the export of pigeon peas to India to be shelved.

In an order dated 15 January, signed by deputy attorney-general Amabelia Chuquela, from the specialised criminal department, that body had decided to “annul the decisions of the public prosecutor’s office” of Nacala-Porto in the preparatory investigation of this case.

The dispute – in which the PGR considered the amount of bail set by the local public prosecutor’s office to be “absurd and astronomical” – has been opposing the two groups for several months and has conditioned the export of bóer beans and other agricultural products from that northern port town to India.

In an attempt to enforce the decision to close the case, ETG returned this week to the Nacala-Porto District Court to release the seized product, as decided by the PGR, but in an order dated 31 January, to which Lusa had access on Thursday, the court decided “not to follow the prosecution’s request and consequently to reject the application” of the Mauritius-based group.

Among other arguments, the court points out that there is still time for a possible judicial appeal against the decision to close the case and that in this case it is only after the public prosecutor’s decision that “it will be possible to speak of an order to close the case as a definitive procedural position” of the public prosecutor’s office.

It also states that the Attorney General’s Office “cannot give any orders or instructions to the courts” and goes on to say: “No one can simultaneously act as a public prosecutor and as a judge in the same criminal proceedings”.

“Nonetheless, third-party embargoes on the seized assets are in progress and the court has issued the appropriate order,” it points out.

The PGR decided to “order the public prosecutor’s office of the appropriate jurisdiction to revoke the coercion measure against the defendants”, according to an order reported by Lusa on 26 January, and to “close the investigation” due to the “absence of a crime”, in a case that has received a lot of international media coverage in recent months.

READ: Mozambique: Absurd bail set in pigeon pea saga; case to be shelved – Attorney-General’s Office

Lusa previously reported that ETG’s leader, Maheshkumar Raojibhai Patel, appealed to Mozambican president Filipe Nyusi, in a letter dated 26 December, to intervene in the “pigeonpea saga”, in which he claimed to be the victim of “expropriation” of cargo and goods by competitor Royal Group Limitada (RGL).

In response to Lusa, an official ETG source said that RGL “was caught sending GMO (genetically modified organism) products to India by the Indian authorities more than a year ago” – in November 2022 – and that it “decided to recover the losses from this incident by starting an unfounded dispute” against the conglomerate, which was “criminalised with the cooperation of public entities” in Mozambique.

In October 2022, the Nampula Provincial Court ordered the suspension of all exports by ETG and other groups also accused by RGL in this case of being whistleblowers to the Indian authorities. The following day, the Nampula Provincial Court granted RGL an injunction to seize ETG’s assets, including real estate and ships, and froze its bank accounts, applying a bond of more than 3,871 million meticais ( €55.8 million).

This amount was secured with the seizure of cargo, namely pigeon peas produced in Mozambique and which ETG intended to export – just as RGL does – with the conglomerate accusing RGL of appropriating the cargo and intending to send it precisely to India.

“The magistrates should have given reasons for their factual decisions, in terms of legal arguments, and why they considered the less severe coercive measures to be inadequate or insufficient in this case,” criticises the order from the Specialised Department for the Criminal Area, given that a representative of ETG was even given the precautionary measure of pre-trial detention by the local court.

“It is clear from the case file that the[local] prosecutor and the [local] judge did not consider the other coercive measures to be inadequate or insufficient in this case, since the former promoted and the latter accepted and decided to replace them with bail in the absurd and astronomical amount of 3,871,850,000 meticais,” it reads.

The PGR’s order also concluded that RGL’s charges of slanderous denunciation and use of a false document, which are alleged against ETG in relation to the alleged export of genetically modified products to India, were unfounded: “We can say that there is not enough evidence with the potential for it to culminate in a conviction once an accusation has been made, which is very likely.”

READ: Mitsui-backed ETG wins order over seized Mozambique cargo

Source: Lusa