Lawyer considers trial “premature”

André Thomashausen considers it “premature” and “unusual” for Mozambique’s public prosecutor (PGR) to bring the hidden debt case to trial without identifying and proving the alleged crimes in the country’s biggest corruption and fraud case.

“It is a premature trial; it is unusual for a Public Prosecutor’s Office to bring to trial a case in which the most fundamental and most important elements of the crimes possibly committed are not identified and proven,” the retired academic from the University of South Africa (UNISA) told Lusa.

“And the key witness, former finance minister Manuel Chang, has still not given his testimony and is unavailable as a witness because the extradition request [for him] to go and make statements in Mozambique was not granted by South Africa. So the case, in terms of legal practice, is not mature enough to go to trial,” Thomashausen states.

In the lawyer’s opinion, Mozambique’s PGR “has not fully clarified the circumstances and facts about the ‘hidden debts’, which will almost necessarily force the court to acquit the defendants because it will not be able to prove exactly what happened”.

“It is even likely that this is the strategy, because it is strange for a prosecutor to bring a case to trial with so many unclarified circumstances, including the testimony of Mr Manuel Chang,” Thomashausen added.

Opportunity for Justice

However, Thomashausen, a specialist in international and comparative law, also said that the process would be “very interesting”, because “perhaps it is a great opportunity for Mozambican justice to break with its tradition of always being captive to political power”, and that “there will probably be light sentences [handed down], but the big problem of ‘the hidden debts’ will remain hidden”.

In this sense, Thomashausen said, “this case [trial] is premature, because it has not really been possible to establish the truth, nor the full circumstances, [and the ultimate whereabouts of ] practically a third of the missing money is by no means clear”.

“There is no accounting; no-one can say where this money ended up, whether it was in the hands of an intermediary, whether it was stolen, whether it was used to purchase military material or was used to pay salaries, is unknown, and Mozambique has always refused the participation even of the World Bank in an audit,” he stressed.

“There we have a very serious problem in the case, because a judge will say that he cannot judge these people for lack of evidence to prove the crime,” he said.

The academic also predicted that the trial “will drag on for a long time”, because “it is also likely to drag on until the end of President Nyusi’s current term so as not to interfere with the political plans of the [Frelimo] party”.

“This is what has been done here in South Africa, where the Zuma case has been dragged out for over 20 years and has so far never gone to trial,” he said.

For Thomashausen, “the big question” at stake can be “deduced from a statement by former president Guebuza”, in which he said that “in fact he did not sign anything”.

“And it’s true, Guebuza left or had everything signed by the then defence minister, who is the current President Nyusi, and what is really at stake here is the good reputation and the innocence of the current head of state,” he added.

Clarifications in sight?

Asked whether the trial in Maputo will clarify the case of ‘hidden debts’, the analyst noted that “it would be an excellent outcome, which would give great prestige to an African country to have found strength and capacity to solve a big financial scandal, a big corruption scandal, by their own means”.

“Hopefully this is the case. The great difficulty for the court, and also for the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office, will be to establish the facts, evidence and circumstances that could allow for clear responsibilities,” he predicted.

Thomashausen stressed that “each of the 19 defendants will always defend himself on the basis that he acted under orders from above because he was instructed to do so”.

“Right now, no one is able to establish who really was the initiator, the motivator, of incurring these €2 billion debts, and who gave the instructions on the use of these funds. A large part of that amount, at least €700 million, remains to be clarified – there really is no proof of what was done with that money,” he stressed.

The retired UNISA academic named defendant António Carlos do Rosário, former director of economic intelligence at the State Intelligence and Security Service (SISE), as “a key personality”, but “it is difficult to predict what he might or might not share”.

“Frelimo, unlike some other liberation movements here in southern Africa, unfortunately has a tradition of resolving very sensitive issues through assassinations. Throughout Frelimo’s history we have regularly had political assassinations,” Thomashausen said, recalling the murder of journalist Carlos Cardoso, assassinated when “he was about to reveal yet another major financial scandal that benefited the ruling party”.

“That is why I believe that many of the defendants will take great care to insist on their right not to give statements,” he said.

The trial of the so-called ‘hidden debts’ case begins on Monday and will see 19 defendants in the dock, with 70 witnesses and 69 deponents, the Supreme Court of Mozambique has indicated.

Manuel Chang was arrested by South African police, at the request of the United States of America, at Johannesburg International Airport on December 29, 2018, on his way to Dubai, on charges of money laundering and financial fraud, and is currently being held in prison in Modderbee, in Benoni, east of Johannesburg.

The former Mozambican finance minister is considered a key player in the US$2.2 billion ‘hidden debts’ contracted between 2013 and 2014, in the absence of parliament agreeing to the signature of state guarantees on behalf of the government of former president Armando Guebuza.

The loans, contracted with Credit Suisse and the Russian bank VTB were supposedly for maritime projects to be undertaken by public companies Ematum, Proindicus and MAM and supplied by the Privinvest group, but which never materialised.