23 April 2008
Maputo — The long-awaited trail of six men for the attempted murder, in 1999, of one of Mozambique's most prominent lawyers, Albano Silva, began before the Maputo City Court on Wednesday.
This case is inextricably linked with the country's largest bank fraud, in which the equivalent of 14 million US dollars was siphoned out of the country's main commercial bank, the BCM, in 1996, and with the murder of Mozambique's top investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, in November 2000.
Sitting in the dock are three of the men currently serving lengthy jail sentences for the murder of Cardoso - Ayob Abdul Satar, owner of the now defunct foreign exchange bureau, Unicambios, his brother, the notorious loan shark Momad Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini"), and the man who lead the death squad that carried out the Cardoso assassination, Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"). Nini Satar was also found guilty or the BCM fraud, though an appeal against that verdict is still pending at the Supreme Court.
The other three accused are Fernando Magno, allegedly hired to arrange the murder of Silva, Osvaldo Muianga ("Dudu"), who was the link between Anibalzinho and the Satars, and Paulo Estevao ("Dangerman"), a former security guard, accused of spying on Silva's house and his movements, in preparation for a second assassination attempt.
There are two prosecution charge sheets - that from the public prosecutor's office, plus a private prosecution by Silva himself. Before the trial began, Silva suffered a setback. He had wanted Vicente Ramaya, the BCM branch manager at the heart of the 1996 fraud, to be in the dock too - but the investigating magistrate decided there was insufficient evidence to charge him.
The prosecution case is that the Satar brothers conspired to assassinate Albano Silva because he was the lawyer for the BCM, and was fighting tenaciously to bring the fraud case to court. To eliminate the inconvenient lawyer, Nini Satar contacted Magno. The prosecution alleges that Satar paid Magno 40,000 South African rands (about 5,700 US dollars at current exchange rates) to "prepare" the murder.
Magno hired Anibalzinho, and on 29 November 1999 they pursued the unsuspecting Silva as he drove down one of Maputo's main thoroughfares, Mao Tse Tung Avenue. The assassins' vehicle drew level with Silva's and a single pistol shot was fired through the window, aimed at Silva's head.
The bullet missed Silva by a few millimeters. The prosecution believe that such a near miss must be regarded, not as a warning shot, but as an attempt to kill the lawyer.
After this failure, Nini Satar cut out the middleman and hired Anibalzinho directly, contacting him via Muianga. Anibalzinho agreed to take charge of a second murder attempt, and received a down payment of 100 million old meticais (about 7,150 dollars at the exchange rate of the time).
The second attempt involved Paulo Dangerman driving slowly past Silva's house on a reconnaissance mission, and spying on Silva's movement. This went badly wrong when Dangerman was identified, arrested and found to have worked as a guard for Satar.
The plotting against Satar's life was interrupted in mid-2000. Satar suspended the operation in order to concentrate on the man now regarded as "the second inconvenience", Carlos Cardoso, whose persistent reporting on the BCM scandal convinced the fraudsters that he had to be silenced.
The charge sheets from the public and private prosecutions cover much the same ground when it comes to the actual attempt on Silva's life. But the private charge sheet, read by the layer Silva has hired to represent him, Antonio de Vasconcelos Porto, goes into much greater detail on the BCM background. It points out that key figures in the public prosecutor's office in the late 1990s, were working in league with the Satars, in order to prevent the BCM case coming to court.
It names the Maputo chief attorney of the time Diamantino dos Santos, and his colleagues Augusto Duarte, Rui Seuane, and Jose Julio Muthisse as those who entered an alliance with the Satars and Ramaya, and claims that Ramaya, the chief suspect, was to all intents and purposes directing the investigations into the fraud.
While Silva insisted that the investigation must focus on the BCM branch where the fraud occurred, and where Ramaya was the manager, those attorneys working with the Satars ensured that when the case did reach court it was in a completely mangled and disorganized condition, with documents missing, and in no fir condition for a trial.
Furthermore, Silva had grave suspicions of the judge originally appointed to hear the case, Carlos Caetano. He protested to the Higher Council of the Judicial Magistrature (CSMJ) against Caetano - and won. The CSMJ removed Caetano from the case and demoted him.
This was in October 1999, and gave the first serious indication that the BCM case might, after all, receive a serious trial. That decision was the immediate background to the attempt on Silva's life on 29 November.
Silva argues that the date, one day prior to the end of the 1999 presidential election campaign, was chosen in order to reduce the impact of the assassination. He also noted that at the time there was reluctance by the public prosecutors and by the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) to investigate the attempted murder. Indeed, investigations only began in earnest a year later, after the murder of Carlos Cardoso.
Pf/ (895)
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