(MISA/IFEX) – Six months after the assassination of Mozambique’s best known journalist and editor of the independent newsletter “Metical”, Carlos Cardoso, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, at the end of its preliminary investigation, has charged six people with the crime According to the Tuesday 22 May 2001 issue of “Metical”, the Public Prosecutor has charged businessman […]
(MISA/IFEX) – Six months after the assassination of Mozambique’s best known journalist and editor of the independent newsletter “Metical”, Carlos Cardoso, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, at the end of its preliminary investigation, has charged six people with the crime
According to the Tuesday 22 May 2001 issue of “Metical”, the Public Prosecutor has charged businessman Ayob Abdul Satar and former bank manager Vicente Ramaya with ordering the killing.
The four others – Ayob’s brother Momade Assife Abdul Satar, Anibal Antonio dos Santos Junior (Anibalzinho), Carlitos Rachid, and Manuel Fernandes – are accused of carrying out the murder.
Cardoso had investigated the business activities of the wealthy and powerful Abdul Satar family. In particular, he had written relentlessly about the country’s largest ever bank fraud, in which the equivalent of 14 million dollars was siphoned out of the Commercial Bank of Mozambique (BCM) in 1996, on the eve of its privatisation.
The key figures accused of this fraud are members of the Abdul Satar family and Vicente Ramaya, who was in charge of the BCM branch where the fraud took place.
The BCM fraud has never gone to trial thanks to high-level corruption in the Attorney General’s office, also investigated by Cardoso. A warrant has now been issued for the arrest of the prosecuting attorney originally in charge of the BCM case, Diamantino dos Santos, whose whereabouts are currently unknown.
The Cardoso murder case now enters a new phase of investigation in which the defence lawyers are officially informed of the charges and are given access to the case file. They may request further investigations, which they regard as useful for establishing the innocence of their clients. This phase will last three months, after which time the prosecution will issue the definitive charge sheet, and deliver it to the investigating magistrate. It is this magistrate who will decide whether the evidence against the accused is strong enough for the case to go to trial.
On Tuesday 22 May, six months to the day since the murder, Cardoso’s family, friends and colleagues will once again gather at the place where he was murdered, to lay wreaths and pay homage to his memory.
Background Information
Veteran independent journalist Cardoso was shot dead on 22 November as he left his newspaper’s offices in the Maputo suburb of Polana. After two vehicles cut off Cardoso’s car, two unidentified assassins opened fire with AK-47 assault rifles, killing him instantly and seriously wounding his driver.
Shortly before his death, “Metical” had been reporting aggressively on alleged wrongdoing at the Mozambique Commercial Bank.
(Source: Agencia De Informcacao de Mocambique, AIM.)
