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Mozambique: Renamo Fails to Stop Attorney-General From Speaking
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
29 April 2008
Posted to the web 29 April 2008
Maputo
Mozambique's former rebel movement Renamo on Tuesday attempted to prevent Attorney-General Augusto Paulino from presenting his annual report to the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic.
The head of the Renamo parliamentary group, Maria Moreno, claimed that Paulino was a suspect in a serious criminal case. She claimed that "many doubts persist" about this case, and demanded that parliamentary chairperson Eduardo Mulembue interrupt the plenary session, and ask President Armando Guebuza "to appoint a new Attorney who can come here tomorrow, or later, to present the annual report".
"We cannot allow Augusto Paulino to offend this House of the People with his inopportune, undesirable and unconstitutional presence", she declared.
Renamo's case against Paulino seems to have been plagiarized from the right-wing weekly "Zambeze", which ran a campaign against Paulino for several months, based on an allegation that he had stolen 300,000 meticais (about 12,500 US dollars) from state funds when he was presiding judge of the Maputo Provincial Court.
This claim came in a denunciation signed by an official of the Maputo Provincial Court, named Adelaide Muchanga, and was dated 26 November 2006. Yet the denunciation was kept under wraps until the very moment, in June 2007, that Guebuza decided to appoint Paulino Attorney-General, and approached the Supreme Council of the Judicial Magistrature (CSMJ), the body that disciplines judges, to ask whether there was any impediment to the appointment. Only then did Paulino's predecessor, Joaquim Madeira, forward Machanga's denunciation to the CSMJ.
The CSMJ investigated the allegation, and a month later, on 19 July, concluded that there was no evidence that Paulino had committed any crime, and that Muchanga's denunciation had been made "in bad faith".
A few days later, Madeira's office sent the same allegation to the Supreme Court, in order for criminal proceedings against Paulino to be initiated. But the Supreme Court came to exactly the same conclusion as the CSMJ - namely that no crime had been committed. Paulino could thus never be described as an accused, because there was never any crime that could be the subject of a charge sheet.
This did not stop "Zambeze" publishing article after article libeling Paulino in the subsequent months, even after Assistant Attorney-General Erasmo Nhavoto had issued a dispatch declining to press any charges against Paulino.
The CSMJ issued a statement in early April saying that there was never any impediment to Guebuza appointing Paulino. That was the CSMJ's position in July, and it now reaffirmed that decision, declaring it "never had any doubt about its legality".
None of this made the slightest impact on Renamo which forced a delay to the start of parliamentary proceedings of about 45 minutes with its demand that Paulino be thrown out.
The majority Frelimo Party denied that there was anything unconstitutional in Paulino's appointment or his presence in the Assembly. The matter had been "exhaustively dealt with" in the appropriate judicial forums, declared Alfredo Gamito. The allegations against Paulino had been shown to be false and made in bad faith, and in February two Supreme Court judges, reviewing the matter, had agreed that there was no crime, and the case was therefore closed.
"Since the case is closed, Renamo's insistence leads us to believe that it has other motivations", he said.
Renamo wanted to continue the debate on whether Paulino's presence was constitutional, while Frelimo regarded further debate as a waste of time. After a shot interval, Mulembue put the matter to the vote, and the Frelimo majority ensured that Paulino would be able to deliver his report without further hindrance.
Defending the Renamo position, Jose Manteigas completely ignored the position of the Supreme Court and of the CSMJ, and simply insisted that the appointment was unconstitutional. "The Renamo benches have denounced various unconstitutional acts committed by this Frelimo government", he declared. "We insist that another Attorney-General be appointed who meets the necessary requirements".
For Frelimo, Mateus Katupha cut through the verbiage to the real reason why Paulino meets such strong opposition - the fact that he is one of the few figures in the Mozambican judicial system who has taken on and defeated organised crime.
"Augusto Paulino is an icon of justice, who has sent members of organised crime networks to jail, the place they deserve", he said. "I am voting for the maintenance of law and justice".
Katupha was referring to Paulino's role as trial judge in the case of the murder of Mozambique's foremost investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, in 2002-03. It was Paulino who imposed lengthy jail terms on the three business figures found guilty of ordering the murder - the brothers Ayob and Momad Assife Abdul Satar, and former bank manager, Vicente Ramaya, all of whom were also accused of involvement in the country's largest bank fraud, in which 14 the equivalent of 14 million US dollars was stolen from the Commercial Bank of Mozambique (BCM).
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Sam/pf (815)
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