Maputo — A defence witness in the Carlos Cardoso murder trial on Wednesday denied that Momade Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini"), one of those accused of ordering the assassination of Mozambique's foremost investigative journalist, had harboured any anger over the articles Cardoso had written about him.

Cardoso had written at length about the Abdul Satar family in "Metical", the daily newsheet he owned and edited. He wrote, not only of their role in the huge banking fraud which resulted in the theft of the equivalent of 14 million US dollars from the country's largest bank, the BCM, but also of their illegal money lending at usurious interest rates, and their use of private wire taps to bug the phones of their adversaries. According to one of Nini Satar's friends, Mahomed Riaz Ahmad, none of this made much impact on Satar. He told the court that after publication of Cardoso's articles, Satar's behaviour "was normal. He didn't talk about the articles". Nor had he ever seen Satar angry.

Riaz said that, on 22 November 2000, the night of Cardoso's murder, he, Satar, and another friend dined in a local restaurant. They knew of the murder from television news, and Riaz described Satar's reaction as "normal".

Unfortunately none of the lawyers asked what Riaz thought of the article Cardoso had published about him. For on 11 July 2000, "Metical" ran on its front page a story of how Riaz had physically attacked Ismael Magid, son of Abdul Magid Hussein, owner of the Maputo company "Bazaar Central". "Metical" reported that Riaz destroyed property in a "Bazaar Central" shop, and that Ismael Magid was briefly hospitalised because of the attack.

Magid told "Metical" he believed Riaz had been sent by Satar because of a cheque for 1.3 billion meticais (about 54,000 US dollars), signed by Satar, that was in the hands of the Magid family. This cheque cropped up earlier in the trial: supposedly it was to pay off a debt to a member of the Magid family resident in Durban. This man had sold three Mercedes-Benz saloons to Nyimpine and N'naite Chissano (the sons of President Joaquim Chissano) and their business partner Apolinario Pateguana. Wealthy Maputo businesswoman Candida Cossa told the court that, when payment for the cars was not made and the Durban salesman demanded his money, a loan from Nini Satar was arranged.

Satar was to issue a cheque, and Cossa would repay him later. But the cheque bounced three times, and so the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) were notified. Hence Satar's desire to get the cheque back.

This story paints a picture of Riaz, not as a simple friend of Satar, as he told the court, but as an enforcer. (Though Riaz's story at the time was that he went to "Bazaar Central" to collect on a completely different debt, for 17,000 dollars, owed by a northern Mozambican businessman, Zulficar Sulemane, and which Ismael Magid was guaranteeing.) The court also heard from David Mugabe, a security guard employed by Unicambios, the foreign exchange bureau owned by Nini Satar's brother and co-accused, Ayob.

It became obvious that the favourite words in Mugabe's vocabulary were "no" and "never". Had he ever seen Anibalzinho (Anibal dos Santos Junior, the fugitive accused of recruiting the death squad that murdered Cardoso) at Unicambios ? No.

Had he ever seen Candida Cossa there ? No. Or Nyimpine Chissano ? No.

Mugabe claimed that he had either never heard of any of the names mentioned by either defence or prosecution lawyers, or never seen them at Unicambios.

This charade was only broken when Helder Matlaba, lawyer for Cardoso's injured driver, Carlos Manjate, asked Mugabe if he had ever seen Orlando Joaquim Malate at Unicambios. No, I don't know him ! came the automatic response.

But Malate is Nini Satar's bodyguard. When Matlaba pointed out that Malate accompanies Satar everywhere, Mugabe's memory suddenly improved, and he agreed that Malate "was always with Nini".

Three other Unicambios employees were called to the court as defence witnesses - but at the last moment the lawyers decided not to question them. Possibly they feared that their memories might be a little more extensive than Mugabe's.