Maputo — Contrary to the impression given in some of the Mozambican media, the decision by the South African authorities to extradite Mozambique's former finance minister, Manuel Chang, to the United States is not yet definitive.
The South African Justice Minister, Ronald Lamola, speaking at a Johannesburg press conference on Monday, said the courts are still considering a request by the Mozambican government to appeal against Johannesburg High Court Judge Margaret Victor's judgment of November 2021 that Chang should be extradited to the US.
This apparently contradicted a statement by Lamola earlier in the day that "Mr Chang will have to be surrendered to the US authorities".
At the press conference, according to a report in the South African paper, the "Daily Maverick". Lamola corrected himself, and explained that the Mozambique government had filed an application for direct access and leave to appeal to the Constitutional Court.
That application was dismissed on 7 June. But subsequently, said Lamola, "the Mozambican government has since applied for leave to appeal to the full bench of the High Court. The matter was heard on 20 June 2022. Judgment is reserved."
The fate of Manuel Chang, however, was not the main subject of Lamola's press conference. He briefed reporters about several high-profile extradition cases notably Pretoria's protracted efforts to extradite two of the Gupta brothers, Atul and Rajesh, from Dubai. The Guptas were accomplices of former South African President Jacob Zuma in what has become known as "state capture".
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Chang has been in police custody in South Africa since December 2018, when he was detained at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg as he attempted to change planes on a holiday trip from Maputo to Dubai.
Chang was held on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by American prosecutors, who want to put him on trial for conspiracy to commit money laundering, wire fraud and securities fraud.
The charges arise from Mozambique's largest ever financial scandal, known as the case of the "hidden debts". The term refers to the illicit loans of over two billion US dollars obtained by three fraudulent, security-linked companies, from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia. The loans became debts because of illicit government loan guarantees that Chang signed in 2013 and 2014. All three companies went bankrupt, and the creditors are demanding their money back.
The Americans claim jurisdiction because the fraudulent scheme abused the US financial system and American investors were among those swindled. But the Mozambican Attorney-General's Office (PGR) wants Chang extradited to face justice in Mozambique.
The competing claims from the US and Mozambique have kept Chang in a South African jail for the past three and a half years, while the authorities decide which of the claims has priority.
In mid-August 2021, South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola announced that he had decided to send Chang to Mozambique. But the South African appeals court in Gauteng province overruled Lamola and declared that Chang must be extradited to the US. The PGR appealed, both to the Constitutional Court and to the High Court in Bloemfontein.
The Constitutional Court threw out the PGR's appeal, declaring "it is not in the interests of justice to hear it at this stage". But the appeal to the High Court in Bloemfontein is still pending.
