Murdered Prosecutor laid to rest in Maputo – Video

Login

Register

http://www.clubofmozambique.com/

Murdered Prosecutor laid to rest in Maputo – Video

8:14 CAT | 14 Apr 2016

Murdered prosecutor Marcelino Vilanculos was laid to rest on Thursday in Maputo’s Lhanguene cemetery.

Speaking at the funeral, Maputo city chief attorney Amelia Machava revealed that Vilanculos was aware that he might be attacked because of a delicate case which he had decided “to take out of the drawer”.

It is not clear which case she was referring to. Much of the media has drawn a connection between the murder of Vilanculos on Monday evening and the case of Danish Satar, charged with involvement in the series of kidnappings of business people that began in late 2011.

But this was not the only case that Vilanculos was investigating. It has been reported, for instance, that he was also looking into the assassination in March 2015 of the prominent Franco-Mozambican constitutional lawyer, Gilles Cistac.

Despite the murder of Vilanculos, Machava said, the public prosecutor’s office will not retreat and will continue to work for the well-being of Mozambican society.

“We want to make it clear to the mentors of this barbaric crime that we will not give up”, she declared. “We will do everything to honour the memory of Marcelino Vilanculos”.

For his part, Momad Popat, of the Mozambican Bar Association, (OAM), warned that “criminals have shown that they are more powerful than the state”. Nonetheless, he too declared that there could be no question of giving up in the fight for justice.

“This will not be just another death that fades into history. It will not be in vain”, Popat pledged. “We will not throw in the towel. We will not allow our state of social justice to be mortgaged to a handful of unscrupulous people, a handful of criminals”.

The Chairperson of the Mozambican Association of Judges, Carlos Mondlane, said that the assassination of Vilaculos was an attack against the entire Mozambican justice system.

“A blow has been struck against all those who are committed to truth and justice”, he declared, “against all those who do not bow before illegality, organized crime, blackmail and bribery”.

The murder has once again raised the debate on the need to guarantee the security of judges and prosecutors. The working and security conditions of the key players in the legal system was “a pressing issue”, stressed Mondlane.

But criminal cases do not die just because the prosecutor dealing with them is killed. “Killing a prosecutor will not allow those who ordered the murder to call off the criminal proceedings”, Mondlane said. “On the contrary, the death of our colleague drives us to a struggle without quarter against organized crime”.