Mozambique: South Africa assesses extradition of Manuel Chang

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Mozambique: South Africa assesses extradition of Manuel Chang

8:52 CAT | 30 Oct 2020

File photo: Lusa

The South African justice minister has begun to consider the decision to extradite Mozambique’s former finance minister Manuel Chang, who has been detained for almost two years in Johannesburg in the so-called hidden debt case, the ministerial spokesman said.

The spokesman told Lusa that the minister, Ronald Lamola, “is giving a lot of consideration right now” to the extradition of Manuel Chang, pointing out that the South African authorities are also processing a “request for assistance” recently submitted through the Mozambican government diplomacy, which he did not specify.

Chrispin Phiri confirmed to Lusa that the former Mozambican Finance Minister remains incarcerated in the Modderbee prison establishment in Benoni, east of Johannesburg.

The Mozambican state has been trying to prevent the extradition of the former finance minister and a high political cadre of the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO), the ruling party in Mozambique, to the United States of America (US) since 2019

Mozambique requested the extradition of Manuel Chang through a diplomatic verbal note on 11 February 2019, more than six weeks after the US Justice requested, on 21 December 2018, his arrest in South Africa to be extradited for trial in a New York court where he has been formally charged since 19 December 2018. The US extradition request was formalised on 28 January 2018.

Manuel Chang, who was finance minister during President Armando Guebuza’s second term of office, between 2010 and 2015, has been detained in South Africa since 29 December 2018 at the request of US justice for fraud, corruption and money laundering in an international scam of USD 2.2 billion (about €2 billion) in the so-called ‘hidden debts’ case.

The ‘hidden debts’ are related to loans taken out between 2013 and 2014 in the form of credit from the UK subsidiaries of the investment banks Credit Suisse and Russian VTB, to create the state-owned maritime safety and fishing companies Ematum, Proindicus and MAM, without telling the Mozambican Parliament or the Administrative Court.

In May that year, the United States accused Mozambique of “pursuing” the extradition of Manuel Chang to protect former President Armando Guebuza and senior officials of the ruling party, suspected of having received US$150 million [€138.1 million ] in bribes according to a US Justice Department document sent to South Africa’s Justice Minister Ronald Lamola, seen by Lusa.

Under former South African Justice Minister Michael Masutha, who was appointed by former President Jacob Zuma, Mozambique’s former Finance Minister Manuel Chang faced two extradition requests – from the US and Mozambique – in the ‘hidden debts’ case while enjoying parliamentary immunity.

On 13 July, the current South African Minister of Justice, Ronald Lamola, after his appointment by President Cyril Ramaphosa, requested that the former Minister of Justice’s decision be considered and annulled as contrary to the provisions of the South African Extradition Act and the SADC (Southern African Development Community) extradition protocol.

Masutha announced the decision to extradite Manuel Chang to Mozambique on the last day in government.

The Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg ordered on 1 November 2019 the South African government to determine whether Manuel Chang should be extradited to his country or the United States.

Source: Lusa