13 January 2009
Maputo — The Mozambican police "have no other version" of the death of fugitive Luis de Jesus Tomas ("Todinho") than the one given after his body was discovered last Thursday, the spokesperson for the General Police Command, Pedro Cossa, told reporters on Tuesday.
Todinho, accused of the murder in 2005 of the director of the Maputo Central Prison, Jorge Microsse, was one of the three assassins who escaped from the cells in the Maputo Police command on 7 December. His body was found in Malampsene, a neighbourhood in the southern city of Matola, at around 23.30 on Thursday night, near the spot where a gang of armed thieves, involved in a car chase three days earlier, had abandoned their car.
The police drew the conclusion that Todinho had been one of the occupants of that car, a stolen Mitsubishi Pajero.
Giving the background, Cossa said that the police had clashed with the thieves, in the Maputo neighbourhood of Coop on the evening of 5 January. There was an exchange of shots, and one of the nearby security guards told police he saw that one of the criminals was wounded.
The gang in the Pajero tried to make their getaway, but the police pursued them across Maputo and into Matola. They eventually dumped the car in Malampsene and escaped on foot. They must have been in a hurry, remarked Cossa, because in the car they abandoned two AK-47 assault rifles, and several number plates from other stolen vehicles.
"So the police were not surprised at the discovery of the body", said Cossa. When members of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC) arrived on the scene they recognised the dead man as Todinho, and this identification was confirmed in the morgue by his relatives.
But there are obvious problems with this story. Could a body really lie unnoticed for three days (particularly since it would certainly have decayed very rapidly in the high temperatures of last week, attracting scavengers, and announcing its presence to the nose of any passer-by)?
When AIM asked Cossa if the police had the results of the autopsy on Todinho, which could give an approximate time of death, and confirm whether police bullets killed him,. Cossa said the autopsy report had not yet been delivered.
"PIC has been told to get the autopsy report", said Cossa. "We believe that this week the hospital will give it to us. We are interested in it".
Cossa did not comment on the alternative version of Todinho's death, given by the private television station, STV. Two security guards at the site where the body was found told STV they heard three shots fired at 23.15 on Thursday night. They told their employer, who in turn contacted the police. When they arrived 15 minutes later, they discovered Todinho's body with two bullets in the chest and one in a leg.
The STV newsroom received an anonymous phone call at 23.20 from a man claiming to be a police officer, announcing that the police had just executed Todinho.
However, another version, published by the weekly paper "Scorpiao", and citing anonymous PIC sources, claims that Todinho was killed, not by the police, but by his fellow criminals. They were supposedly alarmed by Todinho's desire for confrontation with the police, and by his drug habits, which they thought might compromise the rest of the gang.
"They began to be afraid of him, because if he was arrested he would reveal a lot of information that might endanger them", said the PIC source, who also claimed that Todinho was one of those who, a few days after his escape from jail, murdered the Director of Public Order of the Maputo police command, Feliciano Juvane.
Cossa said that 293 crimes were recorded by the police throughout the country in the week 3-9 January. This is a decline on the 321 crimes recorded in the same period in 2008.
215 of the offences were crimes against property (including seven armed robberies in Maputo and Matola), 71 were crimes against persons, and seven were crimes against public order. The most noteworthy theft was the disappearance of 90,000 meticais (about 3,560 US dollars) from the Maputo branch of Kentucky Fried chicken (KFC). Three KFC workers have been arrested in connection with this case.
Over this period, Cossa said, 211 Mozambicans, 158 Zimbabweans, 37 Malawians and 21 Tanzanians had been caught crossing the borders illegally. In addition, 14 Ethiopian and 35 Somali illegal migrants were arrested in the western province of Tete. It is believed that some of them were trying to make their way to South Africa.
Cossa said that during the week 70 traffic accidents were recorded, compared with 94 in the same period of 2008. These accidents resulted in 21 deaths, 38 serious injuries, and 58 minor injuries.
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