MP’s ’empregado’ goes missing from police cells in Matola

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MP’s ’empregado’ goes missing from police cells in Matola

6:08 CAT | 18 Mar 2016

Domingo / The brother of Santos Namorela worries about the fate of his relative who went missing from police cells from Saturday to Sunday (March 5 to 6).

A 40-year-old man called Santos Namorela has disappeared from the cells of Matola’s 6th Police Station in Maputo province, where he was being held following the alleged theft of 20,000 rands in cash from his employer, Frelimo MP Caifadine Manasse.

Weekly newspaper Domingo reports that that sum was kept in one of vehicles parked the MP’s yard in Matola’s Infulene neighbourhood.

Following the disappearance of the cash, Manasse reportedly would have had a frank conversation with his employee in an effort to convince him to reveal what he had done with the money. These efforts being in vain, Manasse called the police and his employee, who comes from the Ile district in Zambezia province, was arrested on Saturday 5 March.

Eyewitnesses cited by Doming report that the parliamentarian specially requested the police to ‘work’ his employee to returning the money. “It is said,” reports Domingo, that once at the Infulene police station, Santos Namorela would have been tortured, but still would not confess to the charge.

From the Police cell to unknown destination

The brother of the accused got news of Namorela’s arrest in the evening of the same day and at dawn on Sunday went to his brother’s workplace. Accompanied by the MP’s wife, he then proceeded to the police station Namorela had been taken to, where Mrs Manasse asked to talk to the detainee. To the surprise of the visitors, the officer sent to fetch him returned a few minutes later with the news that he was no longer there.

Namorela’s disappearance is causing his family much anguish, including the suspicion that he may no longer be alive. Contacted by Domingo, Caifadine Manasse said he could not talk about the case, and that the police were the ones to ask what had happened, his employee having disappeared from PRM facilities.

Domingo’s reporters have however learned that the officers on duty on the day of the accused’s disappearance have been searching the neighbourhood, suspecting that Santos had fled and hid in the house of his girlfriend, near his workplace.

Contacted by Domingo, Maputo police spokesman Emidio Mabunda said that a team to establish what had happened had already been appointed.

Source: Domingo