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Mozambique: Minister files complaint against mayor for linking her to alleged attempted murder
10:26 CAT | 08 Sep 2023
Image: O País
The Minister of Labour and Social Security of Mozambique, Margarida Talapa, has announced legal proceedings against the president of the Municipal Council of the City of Nampula, Paulo Vahanle, in response to him implicating her in an attempted assassination he claims to have suffered.
“I don’t answer, because it’s provocation. You know very well that I am not one of those people. And I referred the case to the judicial authorities; we hope that they will deliver the truth,” Minister Talapa told journalists in Maputo.
The president of the Nampula City Council, Paulo Vahanle, accused an undercover member of the High Individual Protection Unit of trying to kill him on August 24, but the Mozambican police said this is the result of a misunderstanding.
Paulo Vahanle reported that the alleged perpetrator of the attack said that he “came at the behest” of the Minister of Labour. “He complained that he would suffer or be killed because of the Minister of Labour. We don’t understand how the Minister of Labour would be delegating this mission to him.”
Speaking during a press conference in Nampula city, Vahanle said that the assassination attempt took place during the celebrations of the city’s 67th anniversary on August 22.
“I, being on the stand, received information about strange movements of an individual who was later captured and surprised with a pistol-type firearm with 15 rounds of ammunition,” the mayor said, adding that the weapon in question, presented during the press conference, belonged to the Protection of High Individualities Unit of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM).
Contacted on the same occasion by Lusa, spokesperson for the Police of the Republic of Mozambique in the province of Nampula Zacarias Nacute explained that there was a misunderstanding, and that the member of the corporation was on a service mission.
“This was nothing more than a misunderstanding,” Nacute said. “The agent in question was properly installed and it should be noted that one of the ways or strategies that the police have to guarantee order and tranquillity is to place officers in plainclothes to intercept any threat. Therefore, in this process, some men who were in the municipal president’s entourage understood that the PRM agent who was there was manifesting strange movements and questioned him. This is, a priori, an illegal situation, because they have no mandate to do so.”
“There was no assassination attempt. This is a member of the police who was doing his job,” he added.
The mayor of Nampula was elected by the Mozambican National Resistance (Renamo), the main opposition party, and has held the position since 2018. Renamo won eight of the 53 municipalities which held elections that year, with one going to the Democratic Movement of Mozambique (MDM) and the remaining 44 to the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), the party in power.
Vahanle ascended to the position after winning the March 2018 midterm election, following the assassination by shooting of his predecessor, Mahamudo Amurane (MDM), in October 2017.
Paulo Vahanle won again in the local elections in October of the same year.
Source: Lusa
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