Maputo — One of Mozambique's top police investigators, Antonio Frangoulis, has said that he is abandoning police work, reports the latest issue of the weekly paper "Zambeze".
Frangoulis was the chief investigator in the murder of Mozambique's best known journalist, Carlos Cardoso, and it is partly due to his work that five suspects are currently in the dock before the Maputo City Court.
Had his advice been heeded, then a sixth would be there. For Frangoulis warned both Interior Minister Almerino Manhenje and the general commander of the police, Miguel dos Santos, that Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), the man who organized the death squad that gunned down Cardoso, was planning to escape.
His superiors paid no attention, no additional security measures were taken, and on 1 September the padlocks on Anibalzinho's cell were unlocked, and he walked out of what is supposed to be a top security jail.
Furthermore, in July Frangoulis was inexplicably sacked from his post as director of the Maputo branch of the Criminal Investigation Police (PIC). Currently, he is earning his living largely as a law lecturer.
"This is the last time I work actively in the police", he told the paper. "I'm not taking it any more. There's no seriousness. There's a great lack of serious and honest people".
When "Zambeze" asked him to explain what he meant by lack of seriousness, Frangoulis replied "I'm not the one who should explain this. What is certain is that I have a wife and children and I don't want to get into these things any more. I'm 45 years old now, and I've given my youth to the police".
"I told my wife I'm not afraid of being killed", he added.
"But I do fear that they will kill my family".
Frangoulis has received death threats over the phone from Anibalzinho, but despite this the Interior Ministry has taken no special measures to protect him.
Indeed, the Ministry even withdrew Frangoulis's personal gun. When he made a noise about this in the press, it was returned to him. The Ministry tried to withdraw his bodyguard, but the bodyguard refused to go.
But one bodyguard is scarcely enough for a man who has become a target for organised crime. Frangoulis has written letters to the government requesting proper protection, but there is little sign of any response.
The deputy commander of the police force, Jorge Khalau, used to live next to Frangoulis, and so Frangoulis could benefit from his guards. But Khalau moved house last weekend, taking his guards with him.
So Frangoulis now feels exposed. Nonetheless, he ended the interview with the defiant words "If they kill me, I guarantee they won't kill the truth".
