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Mozambique: Albano Silva Case - Witness Reports Bribe Attempt
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Agencia de Informacao de Mocambique (Maputo)
20 May 2008
Posted to the web 20 May 2008
Maputo
The Maputo City Court heard on Tuesday that the sister of two men accused of ordering the attempted murder of lawyer Albano Silva in 1999 attempted to bribe a witness on Sunday.
Momad Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini") and his brother Ayob are already serving lengthy prison sentences for their part in the murder of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso in November 2000. Now they, and four others, are on trial for the earlier attempt to eliminate Albano Silva, lawyer for the BCM, the bank which members of the Abdul Satar family defrauded to the tune of 14 million US dollars.
Tuesday's witness, businessman Sidique Momade Ali, is both a friend of Albano Silva and connected to the Abdul Satars by marriage - his younger brother is married to one of the Satar sisters, Hassina.
He told the court that, because of these connections, when he went, in January 2000, to change some money at the Unicambios foreign exchange bureau, owned by Ayob Abdul Satar, Ayob asked him to pass a message on to Silva.
That message, said Sidique, was that, if Silva agreed to abandon the BCM case, Ayob would pay him half a million US dollars.
Sidique said he told Satar "don't get me involved in this". Nonetheless, he did ring Silva (who was on holiday in Portugal) and informed him of the bribe offer. Silva's only comment, he recalled, was "Tell those people to leave me alone".
Sidique added that on Sunday his sister-in-law Hassina Abdul Satar rang him and requested an urgent meeting. He agreed and a few minutes later she appeared at his house. She told Sidique that she knew he had been notified to appear in court, and asked him "what I required in order to deny the phone call I made to Albano Silva".
What was his response?, the presiding judge, Dimas Marroa, asked. "I told her to leave my house", Sidique replied.
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But before she left, he heard her making a mobile phone call "in an Indian language". He did not know who was on the other end, and could not confirm that Hassina had offered the bribe at the request of her brothers.
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| 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. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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