Maputo — Businessman Jayesh Mangalal has claimed that he is the minority partner in the notorious Maputo foreign exchange bureau, Unicambios - even though he is not registered as such in the countey's official gazette, the Boletim da Republica.

90 per cent of Unicambios is owned by Ayob Abdul Satar, one of the men accused of ordering the murder of the country's top investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso.

Satar's lawyer, Domingos Arouca, submitted to the court a copy of a 1996 Boletim da Republica which named Satar and Mangalal as the two owners of Unicambios.

However, on Tuesday the independent newsheet "Mediafax" pointed out that the Unicambios statutes have changed several times since 1996 - the latest change can be found in the Boletim da Republica of 29 September 1999, and it lists the two owners of the company as Satar and his wife, Sumaira Ali Muhamed.

Mangalal has now written to "Mediafax" saying that he is still the minority partner in Unicambios. He says that he has been Ayob Satar's partner in the company since 19 September 1996.

To justify this claim he cites the Maputo City Commercial Register. Sumaira Ali, he stresses, is not registered as an owner in the commercial register.

So here are two official documents, contradicting each other as to the ownership of the company. But logic would dictate that the more recent one should be regarded as accurate. In any case, it was a 1996 Boletim da Republica that Arouca inserted in the case file, not a photocopy of pages from the Commercial Register.

Mangalal makes no attempt to explain how it is that the official gazette lists Satar's wife as an owner and the Commercial Register does not.