Mozambique: Three suspected thieves lynched in Tete – AIM report

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Mozambique: Three suspected thieves lynched in Tete – AIM report

10:13 CAT | 02 Mar 2020

Image: Noticias

An angry mob lynched three suspected thieves on Monday in the western Mozambican city of Tete, according to a report in Thursday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”.

Two of the victims were beaten up and then burnt alive in the Chingodzi neighbourhood. Their charred remains were discovered near the Revobue river on Tuesday, by people walking to their fields.

The third victim was killed by a crowd after he was caught in possession of more than 300 metres of electric cables. It was assumed that he had stolen them from somewhere else in the city.

One witness to this lynching said he confessed to cutting down the electricity cables “not only to sell them, but also to ensure that the area would be dark at night to facilitate robberies”.

This eye-witness claimed “this man was a killer. So the solution the residents found was to eliminate him physically”.

Another supporter of the lynchings told reporters that it was not worth taking suspected thieves to the police “because the thieves don’t say in the cells. On the contrary, it’s those who complain who suffer, because the thieves return and make threats. So the population prefer to set them alight to reduce the number of thieves”.

Asked to comment, the head of public relations in the Tete Provincial Police Command, Deolinda Matsinhe, said the authorities condemn those citizens who take the law into their own hands.

“Institutions exist to judge these cases”, she said. While it was certainly a crime to cut down cables and sabotage electricity, lynching suspects was also a crime. “Nobody has the right to take anybody else’s life”, stressed Matsinhe, and so the correct procedure, when apprehending suspected criminals, was always to contact the eleven authorities.

Matsinhe said the police are now working to identify those who formed the lynch mob and bring them to justice.

Source: AIM