20 May 2008
Maputo — Prominent Mozambican lawyer Albano Silva on Tuesday called the former director of the Maputo branch of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC), Antonio Frangoulis, an "incompetent" policeman who had "betrayed" his profession.
Silva was testifying before the Maputo City court, in the trial of six men accused of his attempted murder in 1999. He was called to the witness stand again to respond to allegations made by Frangoulis on the witness stand a week ago.
Frangoulis had been lead investigator in 2001 into both the murder of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso, and the failed attempt against Silva's life. He was dismissed as head of Maputo PIC in June 2002, and is currently a parliamentary deputy for the ruling Frelimo Party.
Silva accuses Frangoulis of continuing, in 2002, to visit the accused in both cases, notably the loan shark Momad Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini"), after the PIC investigations were complete, the definitive charge sheets had been drawn up, and the case was entirely in the hands of the judge, Augusto Paulino.
Certainly, Frangoulis has repeated some of the key claims made by Nini Satar, notably that Silva himself has been manipulating witnesses. Frangoulis claimed that Silva, in 2001, had gone to interview a key witness, Oswaldo Muianga ("Dudu") in the Maputo Civil Prison, accompanied by senior police officers including the head of the riot police, Zacarias Cossa, and the national police spokesperson, Nataniel Macamo.
Muianga had testified that Nini Satar, his brother Ayob, and their associate, former bank manager Vicente Ramaya, were each present in at least one of three conspiratorial meetings held in mid-2000 at the Rovuma hotel in central Maputo to plot a second attempt on Silva's life (but because Muianga did not denounce the plot to the authorities, he too has been charged with attempted murder).
The defence argues that there were no meetings in the hotel, and that Muianga is an unreliable witness. Frangoulis seemed to agree, saying that, although he started out believing Muianga, he had become disillusioned in him. He also claimed that a great deal of coaching of witnesses had occurred, prior to the Cardoso murder trial of 2002-03.
Silva strongly denied tampering with witnesses. "I never went to the prison, I never had contact with the accused except in court", he declared. "I didn't go to the prison with Cossa, Macamo or anybody else".
Furthermore, this claim was years old, and was investigated by the Mozambican Bar Association. Had the Association believed there was any truth in the claim, Silva might have been barred from practicing law - but the Association concluded that the allegation was false.
"I am completely against these methods of using courts to defame people", added Silva. "The methods used by crime syndicates are not my methods, and I do not have the resources they have to buy people".
He pointed out that the same accusation had been made against him during the Carlos Cardoso trial. He had denied it then, and so had Muianga. But relatives of the Satars certainly tried to interfere with Muianga and persuade him to change his story. Silva reminded the court that the Abdul Satar family had tried to bribe Muianga via his mother, Fatima Razak - but the bribe money was seized and displayed as an exhibit during the Cardoso murder trial.
It came to 6,500 US dollars and 135,150,000 old meticais (about 5,600 US dollars at today's exchange rate). The prosecutor at the time, Mourao Baluce, said the purpose of the bribe was to persuade Muianga to leave Ramaya and the Satar brothers out of his story altogether.
Convicted car thief Marcial Muthemba on Monday also claimed that he had been coached by Silva prior to the 2002 trial. This too was false, retorted Silva. "I didn't coast Muthemba, in fact I only knew about him through Frangoulis", he said.
He pointed out that, during the Cardoso murder investigations, Muthemba had repeatedly changed his story, and could not be regarded as a reliable witness. "Muthemba has no credibility", he declared.
Both Frangoulis and Muthemba had alleged that Silva made remarks such as "I'm going to f--- the monhes". This is a derogatory term for people, such as the Satars, who are of Asian descent. Silva categorically denied ever making such coarse statements. "I did not use racial epithets. I did not call them monhes", he said. (Since Silva is known to have a number of Asian friends, and has defended in court several prominent Asian clients, it would be strange indeed were he to use anti-Asian racial slurs.)
As for Frangoulis's claim that Muianga could not be trusted, Silva wondered why he did not make the same claim about Nini Satar. After all, in his attempts to discredit the investigations into the Cardoso murder Satar had claimed that both judge Paulino and Frangoulis himself were drug traffickers.
Silva accused Frangoulis of undertaking "free-lance investigations". He was so opposed to Frangoulis's methods that he stopped attending meetings with him in 2002. "Frangoulis was always meeting with Vicente Ramaya's lawyer, which I thought was suspicious", he recalled. (Ramaya was the manager of the branch of the Commercial Bank of Mozambique, BCM, from which 14 million dollars was siphoned in 1996 through fraudulent accounts opened by Nini Satar and other members of the Abdul Satar family. Like Nini and Ayob Satar, he was found guilty of ordering Cardoso's assassination.)
Silva described Frangoulis as "lazy" and "incompetent", and of acting "as if he were one of the defence lawyers". But Silva's attacks on Frangoulis ranged so widely, that the presiding judge, Dimas Marroa, had to cut him off several times, in order to bring him to the specific allegations Frangoulis had made in his testimony. At one point, Marroa threatened to order Silva out of the witness stand, but he relented, much to the defence lawyers' disappointment, on the grounds that "Albano Silva has been living through this case so intensively".
Frangoulis was not in court to hear Silva's accusations. He excused himself with the claim that he had to attend to urgent business in the country's parliament, the Assembly of the Republic. Marroa informed the court that Frangoulis had told him he was to make "two interventions" in the Assembly.
In fact, although he was physically present at the Assembly, Frangoulis did not open his mouth during the entire day's plenary proceedings.
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