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Mozambique: NGO believes ex-minister will be extradited to the US over ‘hidden debts’ – Watch
3:41 CAT | 22 Mar 2021
Screen grab: FMO
The Budget Monitoring Forum (FMO), a Mozambican civil society organisation, believes that former finance minister Manuel Chang, currently being held in South Africa, will be extradited to the United States.
“The FMO knows that Chang will travel to the United States: sooner or later he has to go,” so that “there can be justice,” FMO coordinator Adriano Nuvunga said on Friday.
Also read: BREAKING: Boustani acquitted in $2B Mozambique loan
According to Nuvunga, the extradition has not yet taken place because of “political expediency between South Africa and Mozambique”, as Mozambique has also requested his extradition, in order to stop revelations involving other figures in a case that already has 19 defendants in Mozambique.
The activist, FMO coordinator and director of the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) was speaking on Friday in a webinar on the state of play of international cases related to the ‘hidden debts’.
Manuel Chang has been detained since December 2018 in South Africa at the request of the USA, who want to try him for having signed the sovereign guarantees that are the basis of the state hidden debts in the amount of about two billion Euros, allegedly to the detriment of American investors.
After his arrest, Mozambique also filed a request for Chang’s extradition.
“If Chang decides to tell his story” it will be possible to obtain “a determination of the real responsibilities” in the fraud and money laundering case, South African academic and lawyer André Thomashausen said in the same debate.
“That’s why it’s such a hot topic,” he added.
According to Thomashausen, Mozambique’s relations with South African president Cyril Ramaphosa should, “for the time being, prevent Chang from making his trip to New York”.
But “the [South African] Minister of Justice says there is no legal basis for extradition to Maputo and the case has been left hanging,” he adds. “We will see if it continues like this for a long time.”
Thomashausen thinks the United States could offer Chang a reduced sentence or early release if he collaborates with the authorities, but remarks that the former finance minister has so far remained silent, which he interprets as a sign of loyalty to Mozambique.
Thomashausen even said, in Friday’s debate, that the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office (PGR) should consider using the testimony of the former minister to its advantage.
Chang “will be able to help win the case against Privinvest and Credit Suisse” because he “will be able to explain where there was undue influence”.
Also read: British court upholds Privinvest appeal in case over $2 bln Mozambique debt scandal
The Mozambican state’s US$2.2 billion (€2 billion) hidden debts were contracted with Credit Suisse and the Russian bank VTB during the presidency of Armando Guebuza, without notifying parliament and other significant state entities.
The loans were for maritime projects to be undertaken by public companies Ematum, ProIndicus and MAM, which never materialized. The fate of most of the money remains to be established.
After three former Credit Suisse bankers pleaded guilty to conspiring to launder money in a 2019 US trial linked to the case, the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office (PGR) filed suit in London against 12 defendants, including the bank and companies of the Privinvest group.
The PGR hopes to cancel ProIndicus’ US$622 million (€552.6 million) debt to Credit Suisse (contracted through the British subsidiary) and obtain compensation to cover all losses.
The case is awaiting further developments after the Court of Appeal for England and Wales granted a Privinvest request that the case brought by Mozambique must be dealt with by a Swiss arbitration tribunal.
Source: Lusa / FMO
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