Maputo — The Maputo city court on Monday set 31 January as the date for verdict and sentencing in the case of the murder of Mozambique's top investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso.
Judge Augusto Paulino set the date after listening to the summing up from prosecution and defence lawyers, and final statements from the accused themselves.
Paulino stressed that the only people on trial are the five men in the dock - Ayob Abdul Satar, Momade Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini"), Vicente Ramaya, Carlitos Rashid Cassamo, and Manuel Fernandes - plus the fugitive, Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), who was illitly released from the Maputo top security jail on 1 September.
The judge was thus alerting the public that, although accusations have been made against several other people, notably businessman Nyimpine Chissano, the oldest son of President Joaquim Chissano, they are not on trial, and can thus neither be found guilty nor acquitted.
Chissano Jr is a suspect in a separate case file on the murder, which is in the early stages of investigation, and is currently in the hands of the Maputo branch of the Public Prosecutor's Office.
Paulino acknowledged that he had been criticised in some quarters for allowing radio and television to broadcast the trial live. It was said that this undermined the principle of the presumption of innocence.
"Some people say that we are the only country in the world that allows a trial to be broadcast live. That's not true", he stressed. "And the presumption of innocence does not depend on whether or not there are live broadcasts. It takes other forms".
He said the court was pleased to note that the Mozambican Bar Association had issued a statement which praised the public nature of the trial, and the decision to leave it up to the media themselves to decide how they would cover it. Paulino added that the defence lawyers themselves had also supported live broadcasts "in order to guarantee transparency".
"All the Mozambicans who have followed this trial are judges", said Paulino. "They all have a verdict and sentence in their heads".
But he urged other citizens to keep their verdict to themselves until the court has published its. "Let the court work calmly", he pleaded. "We would like the citizens to keep their own verdicts in the head, and only make them public after the court has announced its decisions".
In its summing up, the prosecution only withdrew one charge against one of the defendants. Both the public prosecution, and the two private prosecutions (on behalf of the Cardoso family, and Cardoso's injured driver, Carlos Manjate), withdrew the charge of illegal use of a firearm against Nini Satar.
Initially, one of the confessed assassins, Manuel Fernandes, had claimed that the AK-47 rifle used in the murder had been delivered a few hours beforehand by Satar. But during the trial, he changed his story - both he, and the man who actually fired the gun, Carlitos Rashid, said that the AK-47 belonged to Anibalzinho, and was already in the car when they set off to ambush Cardoso. Withdrawing this one charge does not do Satar much good - like all the other defendants, he is still accused of the major crimes, the murder of Cardoso and the attempted murder of Manjate.
NOTE TO SUBSCRIBERS TO AIM ENGLISH SERVICE
Because the Monday sesison of the Carlos Cardoso murder trial ran from mid-morning until early evening, it has not been possible to include in this nws cast detailed stories of the prosecution and defence summing up. These will be transmitted on Tuesday morning.
