Maputo — A business partner of Nyimpine Chissano, the oldest son of Mozambican President Joaquim Chissano, has been accused of bank fraud in Mauritius, and the Mauritian Supreme Court has frozen all his assets.

This man, Tereem Appasamy, a Mauritian national currently based in London, was mentioned in December during the Maputo trial of the six men charged with murdering Mozambique's top investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso. One of the assassins, Momade Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini") told the court he had arranged money transfers for Nyimpine Chissano. He said that in early 2000, at Chissano's request, he sent money to a London account of Appasamy. When asked about the Mauritian, Chissano described him as a friend and a business colleague.

Appasamy, Nyimpine Chissano, his brother N'naite, close friend Apolinario Pateguana, and local business leader Egas Mussanhane are the shareholders of Belle Beach Holdings, which is the effective owner of the travel agency and car hire firm, Expresso Tours.

Belle Beach has a variety of projects for hotels and other tourist undertakings in Mozambique, but its future must be regarded as somewhat uncertain given the accusations against Appasamy.

The freezing of Appasamy's assets, reported in the Mauritian and French press, was part of a Supreme Court inquiry into a 20 million dollar fraud case at the Mauritius Commercial Bank (MCB).

In all the court froze the assets of four individuals and eight companies suspected of involvement in the fraud.

MCB, the largest private bank in Mauritius, announced in mid-February that 600 million rupees (about 20 million US dollars) had been illegally transferred into its accounts from the national pension fund. At the request of the island state's independent commission against corruption (ICAC), the court also froze the assets of retired MCB director Robert Lesage, of former senior finance ministry official Dev Manraj, and of economist Donald Ha Yeung.

The eight businesses affected by the court order all have Appasamy as their major shareholder.

The money embezzled from the pension fund was deposited in an MCB account in the name of the Ministry of Social Security and National Solidarity, but it is suspected that Appasamy was the real beneficiary. When Lesage was arrested, he led investigators to Manraj, who was a consultant for Appasamy in hotel projects in Mauritius and Mozambique, and to Ha Yeung, who has served on the boards of several of Appasamy's companies.

Appasamy has close relations with many Mauritian politicians of various parties, and his reaction to the scandal has been to politicise it. According to the Paris publication, the "Indian Ocean Newsletter", Appasamy has denied the fraud accusations, and claims that he merely took out a 300 million rupee loan from the MCB, to be repaid over 15 years. He claimed that the fraud accusation come from deputy prime minister Paul Berenger, who is allegedly trying to ruin Dev Manraj's political career. It is not clear why Berenger should wish to do this, since both men are in the ruling MSM coalition.

The likelihood of Appasamy ending up in a prison cell alongside Lesage seems rather remote, since he is living in Britain, where he made his fortune in real estate.

In telephone interviews with the Mauritian media, Appasamy said he had not been officially contacted by the Supreme Court, and that he would contest the order freezing his assets.