Maputo — Mozambique's Attorney General, Joaquim Madeira, does not believe that only lower ranking police officers were involved in illegally releasing suspected assassin Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho") from the Maputo top security jail.

Anibalzinho, the man charged with recruiting the death squad that murdered the country's top investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, disappeared from the prison on 1 September. In the subsequent investigation, ten policeman were detained.

Interviewed in Friday's issue of the independent newsheet "Mediafax", Madeira said he was not satisfied with the report on Anibalzinho's release drawn up by his own office, and regarded it as incomplete.

The report, he said, presents facts that blame several of the lower ranking policemen on duty at the prison on the day of Anibalzinho's "escape".

"These people are detained, and they are facing criminal proceedings, which must be seen through to the bitter end", declared Madeira. "But we are not satisfied with our own report.

We must go further, since we don't believe that responsibility for Anibalzinho's escape lies exclusively with those who are currently detained". Madeira said his office requested a copy of a second report into the release, that ordered by the General Command of the Police, and then compared the two documents. "We found some similarities, but also substantial differences", he said, without elaborating.

Cited in Friday's issue of the independent weekly "Savana", Madeira said the work now being undertaken by his office "is to find out whether Anibalzinho's escape was arranged on orders from above, or whether some of his co-accused managed to set him free".