Maputo — Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), the man accused of recruiting the death squad that murdered Mozambique's top investigative journalist in 2000, on Thursday said that he had known about the murder plot but took no part in it.
Anibalzinho painted a picture of himself as an innocent car salesman who would never become involved in theft, let alone murder. "I never stole anything from anyone in my entire life", he exclaimed.
He claimed that a key prosecution witness, Oswaldo Muianga ("Dudu") in early 2000 introduced him to businessman Momade Assif Abdul Satar ("Nini"), who said he had "a proposal for a good business deal for me". Dudu set up a meeting at the Hotel Rovuma at which details of this "business deal" would be revealed.
Anibalzinho said when he attended this meeting he found in the hotel room, not only Nini Satar, but also his brother Ayob, owner of the Unicambios foreign exchange bureau, and former bank manager Vicente Ramaya.
Anibalzinho said he imagined the deal would be something to do with buying cars, and claimed he was shocked when he discovered that the Satars and Ramaya wanted him to recruit someone to commit murder.
They wanted to dispose of two people whom they regarded as "inconveniences" - Albano Silva, the lawyer for the country's largest bank, the BCM, and Carlos Cardoso. Their motive, Anibalzinho said, was the huge fraud at the BCM, in which Ramaya and the Satar family had syphoned off the equivalent of 14 million US dollars: Silva was intent on bringing the fraudsters to court, and Cardoso was writing insistently about the fraud.
Anibalzinho claimed he refused. "I made it clear I don't do this kind of thing, I just deal in cars", he said. "I gave them no expectation that I would do it, or find anyone else to do it".
Despite this, he admitted to attending at least one other meeting with the conspirators, also in the Rovuma.
When judge Dimas Barroa asked why he did not denounce the murder plot to the authorities, Anibalzinho said he was scared.
"I was a target because I had a secret of theirs. If I opened my mouth, they would get rid of me".
"I lived in fear", he continued. "Nini kept phoning up and threatening me. He said he had Pakistanis who would kill me if I ever opened my mouth".
"Nini told me he was a great businessman with lots of money and so could do whatever he liked", added Anibalzinho. "Since I am a poor man, I thought it better to keep quiet".
But he admitted to receiving money from Satar, via Dudu.
"Whenever I spoke with Dudu and told him we didn't have money for petrol, or to eat a chicken in a restaurant, I told him "why don't you go to your friend who wants Carlos Cardoso killed and ask him to give us the money", said Anibalzinho.
This was money "for our whims", he said. "100 million meticais for whims ?", interrupted the judge.
"I never received this money", claimed Anibalzinho - before admitting that the sum involved was 80 million, shared between himself and Dudu. (80 million meticais is worth 3,200 dollars at today's exchange rates, and much more in 2000).
Asked where he was at the time of Cardoso's murder, Anibalzinho immediately replied "I was at home. I heard about the killing on television".
But in his very next breath he said he heard about Cardoso's death when he was filling up his car at a petrol station, and Dudu rang him on his mobile phone "informing me that Carlos Cardoso had lost his life".
Throughout his testimony, Anibalzinho thrust all the blame for Cardoso's death on the shoulders of Ramaya and the Satars. He denied every part of the charge sheet connecting the murder to him.
Thus he denied ever visiting the offices of Cardoso's paper "Metical", though members of the "Metical" staff have identified him as one of the two mysterious visitors to the offices in October and November 2000, who would buy just a single copy of the paper and never had the right change.
He denied stealing or driving the Citi-Golf used in the murder, although there are witnesses to Anibalzinho parking this vehicle, first at a parking lot owned by a Maputo mosque, and later at the car part of the company Auto-Adil.
He denied ever using a name other than his own - but Anibalzinho's photo is on the forged Mozambican passport in the name of "Carlos Pinto da Cruz" which the prosecution says he used to drive the Citi-Golf into South Africa the day after the murder. He disposed of the car in South Africa, and returned to Mozambique on foot later the same day.
Asked about statements he had made in 2002 which seemed to exonerate Ramaya, Anibalzinho claimed that he had been manipulated by the man who was then his lawyer, Simeao Cuamba, "because Nini was paying Cuamba".
"Cuamba did not want me to mention the meetings with Nini, Ayob and Ramaya", he added. "Cuamba told me to keep calm because he was organising everything to get me off".
After he had been illicitly released from the Maputo top security prison in September 2002, and spirited away to South Africa, Anibalzinho sent a cassette to the Maputo City Court (a cassette which judge Augusto Paulino refused to allow as evidence in the original murder trial).
The purpose of the cassette was to help Ramaya, said Anibalzinho. "Ramaya phoned me in South Africa. When he told me, I had to make this cassette. It had to give credibility to the claim that Ramaya was not involved. Ramaya told me to say it was all because of Nini and Ayob".
Anibalzinho said he could not remember the exact details of the cassette, but he insisted he had not confessed to the murder in it. (In fact, those who heard the tape in late 2002 have confirmed to AIM that in it Anibalzinho did admit to his part in the crime).
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He claimed that Ramaya had promised him 100,000 dollars for the tape, but that he never received a cent.
"People say that Nini is the most dangerous of the three, but I regard Ramaya as the most dangerous", said Anibalzinho. "He arranges everything so that he won't appear involved".
It was also Ramaya and the Satars, he claimed, who had obliged him to write, from his prison cell, letters to the ruling Frelimo Party "suggesting that there was somebody bigger involved in the case".
The idea, he said was "to intimidate the government" so that the trial would not go ahead.
Was there "somebody bigger" ?, the judge asked. "No, this person doesn't exist", said Anibalzinho. "I had to do everything they said. Hinting at somebody higher up was their strategy because they're very smart".
The "somebody bigger" mentioned by Nini Satar during the first trial was Nyimpine Chissano, the oldest son of President Joaquim Chissano. Satar admitted to paying Anibalzinho the equivalent of 46,000 dollars, but claimed this was a loan to Nyimpine Chissano.
During Thursday's hearing the name of Chissano Jr was not mentioned at all.
Anibalzinho will continue his testimony on Friday.
