7 May 2008
Maputo — The Maputo City Court, in the trial of six men accused of the attempted murder of prominent lawyer Albano Silva in 1999, heard a witness on Wednesday confirm apparent threats to Silva made by one of the accused.
The prosecution alleges that, after the gunman who fired on Silva on 29 November 1999 narrowly missed his target, the conspirators did not give up, but planned a second attempt on his life. However, they also sent messages to Silva, suggesting that, for his own good, he ought to drop the case of the massive fraud that had robbed the country's largest bank, the BCM, of the equivalent of 14 million dollars, and perhaps leave the country.
The BCM was defrauded through a series of accounts opened in the names of members of the Abdul Satar family at the BCM branch run by their accomplice, Vicente Ramaya. Silva was hired by the bank to prosecute the fraudsters, but found that many of the people in the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) and in the Public Prosecutor's Office, who should have been cooperating with him, were in fact working for the suspects.
A friend of Silva's, businessman Momede Shaid, told the court that in June 2000 he had met casually with Momad Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini") in a foreign exchange bureau in central Mozambique. Shaid had come from the northern province of Nampula, and was changing money into rands for a trip to South Africa.
He could not remember the name of the bureau he had used, but the location he gave fits a branch of Unicambios, the foreign exchange bureau owned by Nini Satar's brother, Ayob.
Shaid recalled Satar asking him what his relations with Silva were, and he replied that he had "very good" relations with the lawyer. Satar then told Shaid that Silva was "at risk of his life and he should be careful".
"If anything happens to Albano Silva, they will say it was done by Nini", Satar added. He tried to shift the blame for the menace to Silva onto the shoulders of the prosecutors whom Silva had accused of collaborating with those who defrauded the BCM. Shaid recalled Satar saying "there's a lot of anger between the prosecutors and Albano Silva".
Satar added that, in case Silva should need financial assistance, he could help him. He also warned that Silva should "beware of a white vehicle". (The prosecution argues that this refers to a white Citi-Golf spotted snooping around Silva's house in early June 2000, and which once pursued Silva's driver for several kilometres through the city as he was taking the lawyer's daughter home).
Shaid said that, after the passage of so much time, he could not remember much more about this conversation, but he was sufficiently alarmed to contact Silva immediately to warn him.
No other witnesses were heard on Wednesday morning. Several had been notified, but did not turn up. To the prosecution this suggests that, although Nini and Ayob Satar are in prison, serving long sentences for the November 2000 murder of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso, the Abdul Satar family is still able to strike fear into the hearts of part of the business community.
"There is a climate of fear among some of the witnesses", declared Antonio Vasconcelos Porto, who is representing Silva. At least one of the missing witnesses is known to be in Maputo, he added, and he insisted that he be obliged to come to court.
The presiding judge, Dimas Marroa, was also losing patience, and warned that he would give an order to have the missing witnesses arrested, to ensure that they could give their testimony on Monday.
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
