Mozambique: South Africa to abide by court decision to extradite Manuel Chang to US

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Mozambique: South Africa to abide by court decision to extradite Manuel Chang to US

2:31 CAT | 01 Jun 2023

File photo: Lusa

South Africa has pledged to abide by the Constitutional Court’s decision to extradite to the United States former Mozambican finance minister Manuel Chang, who has been detained in South Africa since 2018 at the request of Washington.

In the notification sent to the Constitutional Court in Johannesburg, to which Lusa had access, it is stated that the minister of justice and correctional services, Ronald Lamola, “will abide by the decision” of the court to extradite the former Mozambican minister to stand trial in the US in the so-called case of hidden debts of US$2.7 billion (€2.5 billion) secretly contracted in the neighbouring Portuguese-speaking country.

“I am pleased to inform you that the third respondent [Justice Minister Ronald Lamola] will abide by the decision of the honourable Court above in counter-application,” reads the notification submitted to the Constitutional Court of South Africa in Braamfontein, Johannesburg. The document consulted by Lusa is dated March 23, 2023.

Questioned by Lusa, the ministerial spokesman, Chris Piri, declined to confirm whether the South African government has already activated the extradition of Mozambique’s former finance minister to the US.

According to the order from the Constitutional Court dated 24 May 2023, to which Lusa had access, the former Mozambican minister should be handed over and extradited to the United States to stand trial for alleged crimes in that country, as stated in the extradition request dated 28 January 2019.

In November 2021, the Gauteng High Court in Johannesburg overturned Justice Minister Ronald Lamola’s decision to extradite Chang to Mozambique.

“Mr Manuel Chang should be handed over and extradited to the United States to be tried for his alleged crimes, in the United States of America, as contained in the extradition request of 28 January 2019,” concluded South African judge Margaret Victor, in the ruling consulted by Lusa.

On June 7 last year, South Africa’s Constitutional Court had already rejected a request from Maputo to appeal Chang’s extradition to the US. Last week, the South African Constitutional Court rejected, for the second time in 12 months, a new appeal by the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office (PGR) against the extradition to the US of the former minister.

The former finance minister is a defendant and has already been sentenced by the Judicial Court of Maputo City in a separate case on undeclared debts.

Manuel Chang, 67, was arrested on 29 December 2018 at O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg on his way to Dubai on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by the US on 27 December for his alleged involvement in the so-called hidden debts case.

Over the past four years, the former Mozambican minister, who is seen as the “key” in the so-called hidden debt scandal, has faced two competing requests in South Africa, without trial, from the United States and Mozambique for his extradition from the country.

The decision by the highest court in South Africa means the “end of the end of appeals” by the government of Mozambique to prevent Chang’s extradition to the United States, South African legal expert Andre Thomashausen told Lusa news agency .

Source: Lusa