Wife of abducted businessman appeals for intervention of Portuguese state

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Wife of abducted businessman appeals for intervention of Portuguese state

1:22 CAT | 21 Dec 2018

Salome-Sebastião (Deutsche Welle)

In a letter addressed to the president of the Portuguese parliament, Salome Sebastião, the wife of abducted Portuguese businessman Américo Sebastião has called for the “mechanisms” needed to resolve the case to be put into motion, saying that “Portugal and the Portuguese state have to act”.

“Portugal and Mozambique are two brother countries and there must be mechanisms that can be set in motion so that everything can be resolved,” the businessman’s wife Salome said in a statement to the press delivered in the Portuguese Assembly of the Republic.

Salome Sebastião called for a “firm, strong and dignified intervention by the Portuguese state on behalf of a citizen”.

Sebastião’s wife says that Portugal “cannot remain passive in the face of this serious and blatant case of an attack on a Portuguese citizen lost somewhere in Africa”.

Salomé Sebastião believes that there is “a willingness that in the future it is still possible to conduct all procedures conducive to the rescue” of Américo “and bring him to freedom”.

“I ask for help from the Portuguese state, and for the state to act,” she said.

The wife of the Portuguese businessman said that she would not give up, and that “the more time passes, the more convinced” she was and the more certain “that everything will end well”.

Salomé Sebastião said she delivered a letter to the government on Wednesday calling for “political intervention at the highest level” and a “follow-up on the petition delivered in Mozambique”.

During her speech, Salomé Sebastião recalled the celebration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and said that if Mozambique and Portugal “truly understand this Universal Declaration and put it into practice” then “my husband has a protected life and his freedom will be restored”.

The wife of the kidnapped businessman added that she was also going to deliver a letter to President of Portugal Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, calling on him “to be the spokesperson for this humanitarian issue before the governments of both countries, before international bodies, both European” and other “instances of the international community”.

As for the future, Salomé Sebastião revealed that she had “more thought-provoking actions” in mind, particularly at EU level, which would be implemented as early as January.

In early December, Américo Sebastião’s wife filed a petition in the Mozambican parliament in which she asked for help clarifying the case filed by the courts, but on which the family thinks they have clues that could help locate the businessman.

Américo Sebastião was kidnapped at a gas station on the morning of July 29, 2016, in Nhamapadza, Maringué district, in Sofala province, central Mozambique.

According to the family, the kidnappers used the debit and credit cards to withdraw “4,000 euros”, being unable thereafter to continue because the accounts were blocked as soon as the disappearance was noted.

The whereabouts of the businessman have been unknown since his kidnapping by uniformed men who handcuffed him and put him in one of the two vehicles in which they left the area.

Portugal has repeatedly offered judicial cooperation between the two countries to try to locate Américo Sebastião, and the issue has been discussed at the highest level between the two countries, but the Mozambican authorities have refused all help in the investigations.

Source: Lusa