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Mozambique: Albano Silva Case - Plots in the Rovuma Hotel

23 April 2008

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Maputo — At least three conspiratorial meetings were held at the Rovuma Hotel to plot the murder of lawyer Albano Silva, after the first assassination attempt, on 29 November 1999 failed.

This was the core of the testimony given to the Maputo City court on Wednesday by Osvaldo Muianga ("Dudu"), the first of the six men accused of the attempted murder to give evidence.

Muianga said that, because he was on friendly terms with both of them, Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anbalzinho") one of those hired to kill Silva, asked him to arrange a meeting with Momad Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini"), who was paying for the hit squad.

Satar agreed and the meeting took place in a room in the Rovuma. Here Anibalzinho complained about the financial arrangements for the contract killing. For Satar had hired a man named Fernando Magno, and Magno had then recruited Anibalzinho into the team. But Magno had not paid up.

Anibalzinho told Satar that, far from the death squad making a mistake, he had deliberately aborted the attack, ensuring that the bullet missed Albano Silva's head, because he had not been paid. (The prosecution does not accept this version of events, and argues that the bullet came so close that it must have been intended to kill Silva).

A second meeting at the Rovuma occurred a few days later, at which Vicente Ramaya, the branch manager at the centre of the fraud that cost the country's largest commercial bank, the BCM, the equivalent of 14 million US dollars, was also present. "Ramaya insulted Magno, saying he'd taken the money and hadn't done the job", said Muianga.

Anibalzinho, he added, was prepared to organise a second assassination attempt, but wanted money up front. Initially, he asked for a billion old meticais (about 64,000 US dollars at the exchange rate of the time), but at a third meeting he tagged on a demand for 600,000 South African rands as well. But Nini Satar was only willing to pay 100 million old meticais as an advance.

Ramaya promised Anibalzinho that he would raise the money issue with "the other bosses". Muianga told the court he did not know who these "other bosses" were.

Muianga claimed his sole involvement in the assassination attempt was as a go-between, passing messages from Anibalzinho to Satar and vice versa. He said he was shocked to discover that the purpose of the meeting Anibalzinho asked him to organise was murder, but he was too frightened to denounce the conspiracy to the police.

Muianga said "they warned me that if the content of the meeting was leaked, I would suffer the consequences", and regarded this as a death threat. After the second meeting, Anibalzinho told him "This is a mafia, you're involved with mafiosi now".

There were no further Rovuma meetings, and Muianga was informed that the plot against Silva was "suspended", because the conspirators had decided to switch their attentions to the second person who was determined to bring the BCM fraud case to trial - Carlos Cardoso, who was gunned down by a death squad headed by Anibalzinho on 22 November 2000

Muianga's testimony was essentially the same as he gave over five years ago at the trial of Cardoso's assassins. And the tactic adopted by some of the defence lawyers was the same, insisting that no meetings had ever been held in the Rovuma.

Muianga admitted that in the past he had changed his story, but insisted that that had been solely on Nini Satar's instructions. Now he was sticking to his original claim that clandestine meetings did indeed take place in the Rovuma, and that Nini, his brother Ayob, and Ramaya had all been present in at least one of them.

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