21 May 2008
Maputo — A senior Mozambican police officer, Nataniel Macamo, on Tuesday denied that he had ever gone to Maputo prisons to visit any of the accused or witnesses in the cases of the murder of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso, in November 2000, or the attempted murder of lawyer Albano Silva the previous year.
Only now, over eight years after the event, has Silva's case come to court. Giving evidence last week, Antonio Frangoulis, former head of the Maputo branch of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC), claimed that Silva hade made visits in 2001 to the Maputo civil prison, to speak to Oswaldo Muianga ("Dudu"), a witness in the Cardoso case, and an accused in the current case.
Frangoulis claimed that Silva had been accompanied by senior police officers, including the then commander of the riot police, Zacarias Cossa, and the then head of police public relations, Nataniel Macamo.
Called to the witness stand on Tuesday, Macamo categorically denied this claim. "I never visited Dudu and I don't even know him", he told the presiding judge, Dimas Marroa.
Another witness who claimed that Silva, accompanied by police officers, had come to the prison to coach him in what to say at the Cardoso trial was car thief Marcial Muthemba. Did Macamo know anything about that?
"I've never even heard that name", he replied. "I never participated in anything of this sort".
As national spokesperson for the police, he added, it was not his job to go round the jails interviewing prisoners. "We worked on the basis of documents when we provided information about police work", he said. "I never went to the civil prison".
Macamo said he knew Silva, but simply because he was a public figure. "I never worked with Albano Silva", he said.
Silva himself has repeatedly denied any improper contacts with the accused or with witnesses, and points out that the allegations were investigated years ago by the Mozambican Bar Association, which found them to be false.
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