Maputo — So shoddy has been the work of Domingos Arouca, lawyer for Ayob Abdul Satar, one of the men charged with ordering the murder of Mozambique's top investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, that he does not even know who his client's business partners are.
During the defence summing up in the murder trial, on 13 January, Arouca argued that Ayob Satar could not have been involved in the murder, in part because he, Arouca, is his next door neighbour, and takes tea with him in the garden, and in part, because Arouca, as his lawyer, manages his client's affairs.
So how well does Arouca know Satar's business, the Unicambios foreign exchange bureau ? It was Arouca who put into the case file a photocopy of the official gazette, the "Boletim da Republica", of 11 September 1996, which contained an update on the ownership of Unicambios.
All companies are supposed to ensure that their ownership, and any changes to it, are recorded in the gazette. The 11 September 1996 issue gave as the owners of Unicambios Ayob Satar and Jahesh Mangalal.
Arouca listed Mangalal as one of the defence witnesses he intended to call - but he suddenly, without explanation, changed his mind and did not call him.
During the trial, Ayob Satar repeatedly stated that he owns 90 per cent of Unicambios. So who owns the other 10 per cent ? If we are to believe Arouca, Mangalal does. If Arouca really does look after Satar's business interests, then surely he must know the true ownership situation of Unicambios ?
Apparently not. For the independent newsheet "Mediafax" has browsed through copies of the "Boletim da Republica" subsequent to 1996, and has found four alterations to the Unicambios statutes.
The most recent is dated 29 September 1999, and states that the equity of the company is 2.25 billion meticais (94,500 US dollars). Of this sum 2.137 billion meticais is held by Ayob Satar, and the remainder by Sumaira Ali Muhamed.
Who is Sumaira Muhamed ? None other than Ayob Satar's wife!
In other words, Unicambios is 100 per cent owned by the Satar family. So Arouca presented the court with a document that was three years out of date.
It may thus be deduced that Arouca knows much less about Unicambios than he claims, despite friendly chats in the garden with Ayob Satar.
Arouca was also at pains to separate Unicambios from the activities of Ayob's younger Satar, the loan shark Momade Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini"). But the fact remains that the younger Satar has an office in Unicambios, and when his clients wish to speak to him, they visit Unicambios.
Nini Satar was once a joint owner of Unicambios - but he sold his share to his brother in 1996, when he fled the country, after the discovery of the fraud in which the equivalent of 14 million dollars was stolen from the country's largest bank, the BCM. Nini Satar, another brother Asslam, and their parents were among the main beneficiaries of the fraud.
Nini Satar returned to Mozambique in 1997, spent a short spell in detention, and was then, thanks to corruption in the Attorney-General's office set free. Since then he has been living with Ayob, and working out of Unicambios.
