Maputo — Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), the fugitive accused of organising the death squad that assassinated journalist Carlos Cardoso in November 2000, is in hiding on the island of Ibo, off the coast of the northern Mozambican province of Cabo Delgado, according to an anonymous high ranking police officer cited in Friday's issue of the independent weekly "Savana".

This story is in sharp contrast to the general belief among those linked to the case that Anibalzinho is somewhere in South Africa.

The official police story is that Anibalzinho escaped from the Maputo top security prison on 1 September. But since somebody simply unlocked the three padlocks on his cell door, allowing him to walk out of the prison, it has always looked more like an illicit release than an escape.

"Savana"'s police source claimed Anibalzinho was released to avoid any embarrassing revelations he might have made during the Carlos Cardoso murder trial. This included not only naming the people who ordered the murder of Cardoso, but also lifting the lid on other crimes involving high-ranking police officers.

"The problem is that Anibalzinho is linked to some of my colleagues in the Interior Ministry", said the anonymous source.

"His presence in court could reconfirm that the police have been infiltrated".

"Savana" says that Anibalzinho's friends in the police always managed to quash previous cases against him that were being investigated by the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC).

They received money and luxury cars from him (Anibalzinho's main criminal activity was the trafficking of vehicles, many of them stolen, across the Mozambique/South Africa border, in both directions.) The anonymous police officer told "Savana" that initially those who released Anibalzinho wanted to take him to Xefina island, in Maputo bay. But they decided that there are too many people on Xefina, and so took him on the 2,000 kilometre trip to Ibo instead.

The paper's source said the police are now "negotiating" with Anibalzinho, in order to bring him to court to back up the contents of a video-cassette that was sent to Maputo via his mother, Teresinha Mendonca. The main point of this tape was to put the entire blame for ordering Cardoso's murder on the shoulders of Maputo loan shark Momade Assife Abdul Satar and his brother Ayob, and to declare that businessman Nyimpine Chissano, the oldest son of President Joaquim Chissano knew nothing about it.

As part of this deal, Anibalzinho would be sentenced, held in prison for six months, and then allowed to escape.

When "Savana" asked Attorney-General Joaquim Madeira to comment on the possibility that Anibalzinho may be in Ibo, he replied "That's news to me, and I shall start to investigate it right away".

There are some obvious problems with the Ibo story. First, how did his rescuers take Anibalzinho there ? They would surely not have risked a 2,000 kilometre journey by road. And if they went by plane, then checking the passenger lists of flights from Maputo to Cabo Delgado could be illuminating.

Furthermore, it is simply not true that there are more people on Xefina than on Ibo. For a small island, Ibo is actually quite densely populated, with over 7,000 inhabitants. And precisely because it is an island, new arrivals might be readily noticed.

We also know that Anibalzinho has been in regular phone contact with his mother, has made threatening phone calls to the former chief investigator of the case, Antonio Frangoulis, and has been able to make at least one video-cassette of himself. By using mobile phones, and with someone bringing in video equipment from Maputo, it would not be impossible for Anibalzinho to keep up this sort of contact from Ibo. But it would be a lot easier to do it from South Africa.

"Savana" also reveals other attempts by police officers to prevent the Cardoso murder from ever coming to court. One high- ranking officer requested an audience with Madeira, and urged him to drop the case. He argued that if a murder trial was held "it would not be the state judging criminals, but criminals judging the state".

Madeira turned down the request, and asked the police officer "What state are you working for ?" Another senior police officer, at an early stage in the investigations, told Frangoulis not to follow up certain leads.

Frangoulis went to Madeira, who ordered him to continue, and if anybody interfered again, to tell them he was working on instructions from the Attorney-General.

Significantly, Frangoulis kept sensitive material related to the case under lock and key, not at the PIC offices, nor at the Ministry of the Interior, but at the headquarters of the state security service, SISE.