Maputo — Maputo, 10 Mar (AIM) - One of the high points of the opening parliamentary sitting of the year is always the report from Attorney-General Joaquim Madeira on the situation of the Mozambican legal system.

Last year, Madeira gave an extremely sombre report pointing to incompetence, corruption and abuse of power at all levels of the administration of justice - police, attorneys, judges, lawyers and prisons. The harsh facts, he admitted, led to "lack of credibility, distrust and even contempt for Mozambican justice".

Madeira is due to give this year's report to the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on Wednesday - and his audience will certainly want to hear if there have been any improvements. He can point to one victory: six people charged with the murder of Mozambique's top investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, were tried between November and January, convicted and sentenced to long prison terms. Two years ago it was feared that the case would never come to trial. But public pressure ensured that this murder was not forgotten, and some honest individuals in the police and judiciary did their jobs properly, arresting and eventually convicting powerful figures from the world of organised crime.

But all kinds of other cases flow from the Cardoso murder trial. First, there is the case of the illicit release from the top security prison on 1 September of one of the accused, Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), who was then tried in absentia. Over six months have passed, and there is still no explanation.

Both the police and Madeira's office set up inquiries into Anibalzinho's "escape", but so far nothing has been made public.

Madeira's report to the Assembly, which will be broadcast live by radio and television, is an excellent opportunity to tell the public how such a dangerous and high profile prisoner was able to walk out of the jail.

How far up does the rot go ? Was the director of the prison involved ? Were high ranking Interior Ministry officials involved? Why did Interior Minister Almerino Manhenje ignore the warning he received that Anibalzinho would try to escape ?

Hopefully, Madeira will bring answers to some of these questions.

Accusations were made in court that the man who paid for Cardoso's assassination was Nyimpine Chissano, the oldest son of President Joaquim Chissano. A separate file was opened in which Nyimpine is the main suspect, and although this case is still in its early stages, Madeira needs to convince his audience that it is being taken seriously.

There are indications that Chissano Jr committed perjury on the witness stand. Certainly his evidence was not compatible with that given by his former friend, businesswoman Candida Cossa. In other cases of false statements, those guilty are arrested. No doubt some parliamentarians would like to know why no order has been given for the preventive detention of Nyimpine Chissano. The murder trial also exposed a variety of economic crimes, including money laundering, loan-sharking and the illegal trafficking in foreign currency. From the voluminous documentation in the Carlos Cardoso case file, prosecutors should be able to open many other cases - if they have the political will to do so. Madeira should reassure Mozambican society that this work is going ahead. Full forensic audits of three institutions mentioned in the trial might be very revealing - they are the Polana Casino, whose former manager, Gerry Rouper, broke Mozambican gaming legislation by lending money to clients, and then borrowed large sums from one of Cardoso's assassins, Momade Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini"); Nyimpine Chissano's car hire company, Expresso Tours; and above all, the foreign exchange bureau Unicambios, owned by Nini's brother, Ayob Abdul Satar. It is extraordinary that Unicambios is still open. Its majority shareholder has been convicted of murder; Nini ran his illegal money-lending business from an office in Unicambios; and the company is suspected of massive money-laundering. Perhaps Madeira could enlighten us as to why the institutions of justice have not closed it down.

Then there are other high profile murder cases - notably the assassinations of banker Antonio Siba-Siba Macuacua on 11 August 2001, and of popular musician Pedro Langa, on 20 November 2001. A suffocating veil of silence has fallen over both cases.

A year ago, Madeira told parliament, that "under normal conditions", the Siba-Siba case "should have been cleared up by now". But conditions were not normal: the police investigators went on strike by "making impossible demands on the state as a condition for continuing the investigation".

Madeira did not say what these demands were. A year has passed, and all that we hear from the police is that enquiries are continuing.

Siba-Siba was killed after the central bank put him at the head of the crisis-ridden Austral Bank, whose private shareholders pulled out in April 2001, and handed their shares back to the state. Siba-Siba delved into the finances of Austral, embarked on a programme of debt recovery, and even printed the names of hundreds of debtors in the daily paper "Noticias".

Those who looted Austral had every motive for eliminating Siba-Siba. So it would be interesting to hear from Madeira whether the investigators have questioned the bank's main debtors, and members of the previous management, including the former chairman of the board, Octavio Muthemba.

Madeira will be able to tell parliament that an end is now in sight to the case Cardoso had been tenaciously investigating, and was believed to be the main motive for his assassination - the 1996 fraud which cost what was then the country's largest bank, the BCM, the equivalent of 14 million US dollars.

After corrupt attorneys such as the man initially in charge of the case, Diamantino dos Santos (currently on the run) hid evidence, and deliberately disorganised the case papers, the BCM case has been reconstituted, and the investigating magistrate found enough evidence to charge 20 people. Some of the accused (notably Nini Satar, and former BCM branch manager Vicente Ramaya) are among those convicted of Cardoso's murder.

The case has been held up by the defence lawyers, who have appealed to the Supreme Court against it going to trial. But this situation is much better than that of a year ago, when Madeira complained that, despite the pressure from his office, the BCM case was not moving.

These are the key cases in the public eye, and citizens will want to hear what Madeira has to say about each and every one of them.

In the longer term, a viable justice system in Mozambique depends on structural changes - notably removing the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) from the control of the Interior Ministry, and placing it directly under the Attorney-General's office.

Madeira made a strong call for this in 2002, but it has not yet happened - though there have been some steps to begin forming a "Judicial Police" (a renamed PIC) that would be independent of the Interior Ministry.