Mozambique: Trial of murder of election observer will be a ‘farce’ – CDD

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Mozambique: Trial of murder of election observer will be a ‘farce’ – CDD

3:26 CAT | 07 May 2020

FILE- Adriano Nuvunga, chair of CDD Moçambique. [File photo: Lusa]

Mozambican civil society organisation the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD) on Wednesday dubbed the trial in the case of the murder of electoral observer Anastácio Matavel “a farce”, and condemned the public prosecutor for not indicting the Mozambican State.

“We want to express our indignation and discontent over this farce of a trial because, from the outset, the Mozambican State has been relieved of accountability for the case,” CDD director Adriano Nuvunga said. The CDD is participating in the legal representation of the deceased election observer’s family.

Anastácio Matavel was shot dead on October 7 last year on a street in Xai-Xai city, Gaza province, in the south of the country, a week before the general elections of October 15.

In November, the Gaza Provincial Prosecutor’s Office charged eight defendants with the crime, including five officers of a special Mozambican police unit.

The family of the activist pursued a compensation claim from the Mozambican state of about 35 million meticais (€480,000), but the public prosecutor opposed the request, claiming that the police officers were not on duty and therefore would have acted on their own initiative.

This left the CDD indignant, and claiming that important proceedings were omitted from the investigation, both by the public prosecutor’s investigation and indictment and the court’s preliminary trial leading to the definitive indictment ruling [despacho de pronúncia].

Nuvunga says the Mozambican State should be in the dock and answer for Matavel’s murder, because the police officers accused in the case allegedly acted in the service of the state.

“The people who killed Anastácio Matavel are Republic of Mozambique police officers,” he said.

The director of the CDD also criticised the ruling by the Judicial Court of Gaza Province – the court that will try the case – refusing to investigate phone calls the defendants made in the days and weeks before the murder.

“The request of the family’s legal representation in the case was for the court to request the audio of the conversations exchanged weeks and days before the murder,” Nuvunga observed.

A few weeks after the public prosecutor’s indictment, the officers involved in Anastácio Matavel’s murder were promoted in a process which police authorities themselves later found flawed and eventually revoked.

The murder of Anastácio Matavel, a civil society activist involved in election observation who died during the general election campaign, provoked outrage in Mozambique and abroad. The trial is scheduled to start on May 12.

Source: Lusa