Maputo — The Mozambican police have announced the death in a gun battle of Luis de Jesus Tomas ("Todinho"), one of the three assassins who escaped from the cells of the Maputo City Police Command on 7 December.

Todinho, who was accused of the October 2005 murder of the director of the Maputo Central Prison, Jorge Microsse, met his own death on Monday, but at the time the police did not realize who they had shot.

On Monday night a criminal gang was reported to be ambushing citizens in the central Maputo neighbourhood of Coop, stealing their mobile phones and other possessions at gunpoint. When a police patrol car intervened, the gang opened fire on it, wounding two police officers.

A car chase across Maputo then followed, until the gunmen abandoned their vehicle, a stolen Mitsubishi Pajero, in the peripheral neighbourhood of Malhapsene, and continued their getaway on foot.

On Thursday, the police discovered Todinho's body near the spot where the car had been abandoned. They deduced that Todinho had been in the car, and had been seriously injured in the shoot-out. His accomplices then left him, dead or dying, in Malhapsene.

Todinho's body is currently in the morgue at Maputo Central Hospital. Medical staff would not allow AIM reporters to see the body, but relatives confirmed that the dead man was indeed Todinho.

There is still no sign of the other two murderers who escaped with Todinho. One of them, Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho") is the man who recruited and led the death squad that assassinated the country's finest investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, in November 2000. He was serving a 30 year prison sentence for this crime.

The third fugitive is Samuel Januario Nhare ("Samito"), one of the right hand men of the country's most wanted gang leader, Agostinho Chauque, responsible for a string of armed robberies and murders of police officers.