Maputo — Mobile phone numbers used by Momade Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini") in the Maputo top security prison are registered, not in the name of Nyimpine Chissano, oldest son of President Joaquim Chissano, or of his business partner Apolinario Pateguana, as Satar had claimed on Thursday, but in the name of a company owned by the Abdul Satar family.

At the start of the Friday session of the Carlos Cardoso murder trial, in which Satar is one of the accused, judge Augusto Paulino said that investigations showed that the phone numbers used by Satar were in the name of Mohasset Import-Export.

This company exists only on paper, and is owned by Satar's brother-in-law, Mohamed Asslam Satar.

Nini Satar admitted this - but insisted that initially phone number 312351 was registered in Patequana's name. "But later I changed the contract at their (Pateguana's and Chissano's) insistence", he said. "Nyimpine insisted on changing the contract, so that any phone card found in my cell could not be traced to him".

He claimed that, in the illicit phone contacts between the accused and the outside world, other numbers, initially registered in Pateguana's name were used - but "they went to M- Cel (the mobile phone company) to change the numbers and hide the traces".

Satar insisted that numbers he had given on Thursday of phones belonging to Chissano and Pateguana should be checked. He claims that these show a pattern of contacts, thus contradicting Chissano's claim that he did no business with Satar.

At this point, Paulino waved aloft heavy envelopes from M- Cel, containing the phone records requested. "We have already subpoenaed this information from M-Cel", he said, "but we haven't even opened the envelopes yet".