Mozambique: Prosecutors want to extradite alleged drug baron – AIM report

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Mozambique: Prosecutors want to extradite alleged drug baron – AIM report

7:31 CAT | 29 Apr 2019

Photo: O País

The Mozambican Public Prosecutor’s Office on Friday presented arguments to the Supreme Court, in favour of extraditing to the United States a Pakistani citizen, Tanveer Ahmed, who is wanted on drugs trafficking charges.

According to a report in Monday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, the Mozambican prosecutors said the American extradition request met all the requirements demanded under Mozambican law.

However, Ahmed’s lawyer, Samuel Savanguane, claimed that it would be “unconstitutional” to extradite his client.

He said there was “a lack of elements of identification” in the paperwork sent by the US authorities, and no clear indication as to whether he could appeal, if he is eventually tried and sentenced to a possible 40 year jail term.

Assistant Attorney-General Amabelia Chuquela declared that fears by the defence that Ahmed could face the death penalty, or life imprisonment, were unfounded. The Public Prosecutor’s Office had received guarantees from the Americans that the crimes of which Ahmed is accused do not carry the death penalty.

There was nothing improper about the American extradition request, she added, and the arguments presented by the defence were “false”.

An international arrest warrant was issued by a court in Texas on 21 December. Four people were named on the warrant, including Tanveer Ahmed, who was said to be living in the southern Mozambican city of Matola.

Ahmed had been in difficulties with the Mozambican authorities too, and was arrested last year in the northern province of Cabo Delgado on drug charges.

But, to the obvious annoyance of the Public Prosecutor’s Office a court in the provincial capital, Pemba, acquitted him, on the grounds of insufficient evidence.

This came as a surprise since, in October, the National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) announced that Ahmed, two Tanzanians and a Kenyan had been arrested in possession of 34 kilos of cocaine and about two kilos of hashish.

Source: AIM