Maputo — The Maputo City Court has found all six men charged with the murder of journalist Carlos Cardoso guilty, claims the latest issue of the independent weekly "Zambeze".
Judge Augusto Paulino set Friday as the date for publishing the verdict and sentence, but "Zambeze" claims to have gained access in advance to the court's decisions.
The paper says the Court has given the maximum sentence of 24 years imprisonment to five of the six accused - namely Anibal dos Santos Junior (Anibalzinho), Carlitos Rachide Cassamo, Manuel Fernandes, Momade Assife Abdul Satar ("Nini"), and Vicente Ramaya. The sixth accused, Nini's brother, Ayob Abdul Satar, is said to escape with the relatively light sentence of ten years.
Anibalzinho, Rachide and Fernandes were the three men who carried out the assassination. Rachide fired the fatal shots, Fernandes was the lookout, and Anibalzinho drove the car and paid off the other two.
Anibalzinho is being tried in absentia, since he was illicitly released from the Maputo top security prison on 1 September. Almost five months have passed, and the report into Anibalzinho's disappearance has still not been made public.
Ramaya and the two Satar brothers were accused of ordering the assassination. Nini Satar admitted to paying the equivalent of 50,000 US dollars to Anibalzinho - but claims he did not know the money was to pay for a contract killing.
Satar's defence was that the money was a loan to businessman Nyimpine Chissano, the oldest son of President Joaquim Chissano, who asked for the money to be paid, not to him, but to Anibalzinho. Chissano vehemently denies this and claims he had no business dealing at all with Satar.
He has, however, been unable to provide a convincing explanation for the postdated cheques bearing his signature which Satar submitted in evidence. Satar claims these cheques were security on the loan: Chissano claims the cheques were intended to cover a loan granted, not by Satar, but by wealthy businesswoman Candida Cossa, and he could not understand how they turned up in Satar's hands.
A separate case file has been opened on Nyimpine Chissano, and is at the early stages of investigation. The Public Prosecutors Office must decide whether there is sufficient evidence to warrant pressing murder charges against Chissano.
The "Zambeze" article does not explain why the court decided to separate Ayob Satar from his brother and Ramaya, and give him a much lower sentence.
The article says that all six were found guilty of the first degree murder of Cardoso, the attempted murder of his driver, Carlos Manjate, and criminal conspiracy. Anibalzinho and Rachide were also found guilty of the illegal possession and use of firearms, and the court found Anibalzinho and Fernandes guilty of stealing the car, a red Citi-Golf, used in the assassination.
Anibalzinho also faced a couple of lesser charges - the use of a false passport, and making false statements to the authorities.
An anonymous judicial source cited by "Zambeze" said that, because of the seriousness of the crime, the six will not enjoy parole. Normal practice is that prisoners who are well behaved in jail are set free (often against bail) after serving half their sentence, but can be thrown back into jail if they re-offend. But in this case, it seems that 24 years really does mean 24 years.
"Zambeze" was certain enough of its anonymous sources to splash this story across its front page. But if the paper is wrong, and the verdict read out by Paulino on Friday is different, it will take a long time for "Zambeze" to recover its credibility.
