Mozambique: Permanent Commission allows pre-trial detention of Chang

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Mozambique: Permanent Commission allows pre-trial detention of Chang

7:35 CAT | 29 Jan 2019

Photo:TVM

The Permanent Commission of Mozambique’s parliament on Tuesday allowed the pre-trial detention of former minister of finance Manuel Chang, detained in South Africa in December, although the main opposition party said it is a “rough attack” on the Constitution.

“We deliberate in favour of the Supreme Court’s request,” the vice-president of the parliament, António Amélia, said moments after the Commission’s session in the Mozambican parliament.

In question was a request from the Mozambican Supreme Court for the consent of the parliament to apply the maximum coercive measure, pre-trial detention, to the former minister of finance, Manuel Chang, regarding an investigation into hidden debts.

Amélia clarified that the request is not related to a waiver of immunity, which, according to the legislation, can only be decided in plenary by secret ballot.

Renamo (Mozambican National Resistance, opposition party), which left the session, said that the decision harms the Constitution, stressing that “there is no pre-trial detention that can be applied on a member who has immunity.”

Ivone Soares, the leader of Renamo’s parliamentary bench, said that it is a “dilatory manoeuvre” to disrupt investigations and the ongoing trial in South Africa, avoiding the extradition of Chang to the US, as it was requested to South African authorities by the US justice.

In the document submitted by the Supreme Court to the Mozambican parliament, Chang is accused of crimes of passive corruption for illicit acts, money laundering, fraud by embezzlement, abuse of office or duties and violation of budgetary legality.

In addition to Chang, as part of the US investigation, three former bank employees of Credit Suisse and a Privinvest intermediary have been detained in different countries since 29 December at the request of the US justice.

According to the prosecution, the hidden debts guaranteed by the Mozambican state between 2013 and 2014 to three fisheries were the base for a scheme of corruption and money laundering to enrich several suspects.

Source: Lusa