14 April 2008
Maputo — The Mozambican police on Monday denied a report that some of the country's most dangerous criminals had tried to escape from the cells in the Maputo police command over the weekend.
Monday's issue of the daily newsheet "Diario de Noticias" claimed that among those who tried to escape was Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), the country's most notorious assassin, who is serving a 30 year sentence for his part in the murder in November 2000 of Mozambique's foremost investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso.
Another of those supposedly involved in the escape attempt was Samuel Januario ("Samito"), one of the right hand men of the country's most wanted criminal, Agostinho Chauque, who is accused of a string of bank robberies and murders of policemen, among other crimes.
According to "Diario de Noticias", citing anonymous police sources, the escape attempt took place on Saturday night, and the inmates had smashed ten padlocks on the various cells, before guards heard the noise, intervened and aborted the break-out.
The paper claimed that on Sunday the police questioned the would-be escapees to find out who smuggled into the cells the iron bars they were using to destroy the padlocks.
But when AIM approached the Maputo City police spokesperson Arnaldo Chefo on Monday, he denied the story. "They want to get out of here", he said, "but so far there's been so sign of an attempted escape".
He added that several of the criminals incarcerated in the city command are demanding to be transferred to the Maputo top security jail. But it was here that Anibalzinho escaped twice - in September 2002 (to South Africa) and in May 2004 (to Canada). His attempts to claim asylum in Canada failed, and he was repatriated to Maputo in January 2005.
Last month, the police frustrated a suicide attempt by Samito, who tried to hang himself from the bars of his cell window by a piece of his clothing. When the police rescued him, Samito demanded a move to the top security prison.
It is certainly likely that Anibalzinho will try to escape again. But he is finding the police command more difficult than the top security jail. He has tried to escape from his current cell on at least four occasions, sometimes using hacksaw blades and other instruments. It is not at all clear how these reached him. But on all occasions the guards were able to intervene and stop him.
"Recently Anibalzinho has not been much of a danger to us", said Chefo. "It's true that we must always be on our guard, but he's calm".
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