Mozambique: Police agent sentenced to 13 years for inciting coup d’état – Watch

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Mozambique: Police agent sentenced to 13 years for inciting coup d’état – Watch

1:17 CAT | 28 Sep 2023

Screen grab: Miramar

The Judicial Court of the Province of Inhambane in southern Mozambique on Wednesday sentenced an agent of the police Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR) to 13 years in prison for inciting a coup d’état and disobedience.

The court noted that the crimes attributable to the agent were punishable by a prison sentence of up to 24 years, but decided, for unspecified reasons, to make a “special reduction”.

The defendant fainted when the sentence was read. The judge went on reading the sentence. He was assisted by an officer of the Penitentiary Services but stayed the defendant was still lying on the floor by the end of the court session, Miramar reports. [Watch the video below)..

The Mozambican Public Prosecutor’s Office accused the UIR agent of having broadcast messages through the social network ‘Whatsapp’ inciting other members of the police to rebel against salary delays in the corporation and threatening to “remove the commander in chief [Mozambican president Filipe Nyusi] from Ponta Vermelha [the official residence of the head of state]”, as well as “stopping the country”.

“So that others, who use social networks, do not spread messages that promote coups d’état, we ask that a sentence of 30 years in prison be applied,” the public prosecutor had earlier urged the court.

During the trial, the defendant distanced himself from the authorship of the message, indicating that he had merely forwarded it to police general commander Bernardino Rafael with the intention of warning him.

“I only received the message and, as a member of the PRM sworn to defend national sovereignty, as soon as I saw it I forwarded it to the general commander. I am not the author of the message,” the defendant declared.

Source: Lusa / Miramar