Public Prosecutor insists on Chang’s extradition to Mozambique and accuses US of not cooperating in case

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Public Prosecutor insists on Chang’s extradition to Mozambique and accuses US of not cooperating in case

2:38 CAT | 09 Sep 2019

File photo: Voa Portugues

Mozambican Attorney General Beatriz Buchili has accused US judicial authorities of not cooperating in the hidden debt case investigation and has once again demanded that former finance minister Manuel Chang be extradited to Mozambique from South Africa.

Just over a month before a Johannesburg Supreme Court hearing on Manuel Chang’s extradition, Buchili filed an appeal to that court stating that the former finance minister should be extradited to Mozambique because “the criminal offences have had devastating effects on Mozambique’s economy.”

“It is therefore important for Mozambique to successfully prosecute this case to demonstrate its commitment, competence and capacity to fight corruption,” the prosecutor is revealed as saying in document revealed by the Mozambique Centre for Public Integrity, CIP. [Full document submitted by the PGR, translated into Portuguese by CIP, HERE]

“I claim that Mozambique has the capacity to sue Chang and his co-plaintiffs. Public Prosecution Service institutions are effectively used by civil society organisations. Civil society organisations trust the judicial and prosecuting institutions of Mozambique,” the appeal adds.

The Mozambican prosecutor said the United States had requested information about the case from Mozambique, adding that the Mozambican prosecutor “provided the information it could, but they never provided satisfactory information on what we were requesting.”

“All they provided at any given time is what we already had [discovered] in our investigations. This is how the US created the impression of cooperation, with which we work… ,” the document observes.

The case of former Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang will be heard on 16-17 October at the Johannesburg Supreme Court.

The Budget Monitoring Forum (FMO), a group of more than 10 Mozambican civil society organisations, and South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola call for a review of the decision to extradite Manuel Chang to Mozambique.

The FMO wants Manuel Chang to be extradited to the United States, whose justice organs requested the arrest in South Africa of the former Mozambican minister through Interpol, which arrest took place on December 29, 2018.

After the Kempton Park lower court ruled on Chang’s extradition, former South African Minister of Justice and Correctional Services Michael Masutha decided to send the then Frelimo deputy to Mozambique.

But South Africa’s new justice minister Ronald Lamola called for a review of his predecessor’s decision because Chang did not have a court case pending against him in Mozambique at the time.

In July, in an attempt to counter the argument that he could not be tried in Mozambique, the former Mozambican finance minister resigned as deputy, thereby losing his parliamentary immunity.

Source: Voa Portugues