Pretoria — Anibal Antonio dos Santos Junior, one of the murderers of Mozambican journalist Carlos Cardoso, will return to that country voluntarily after he was arrested in South Africa, the Pretoria Magistrate's Court heard on Friday.

Dos Santos, 31, was arrested in Wierda Park, Centurion, on Thursday afternoon. He escaped from a Mozambican jail in September last year while the murder trial was already underway.

He was to be sentenced for the murder in absentia in Mozambique on Friday, along with five other men convicted of the killing.

During a brief appearance in the Pretoria court, Cardoso indicated he would not insist on official extradition proceedings, but return to Mozambique of his own free will.

This will happen once all the formalities and paper work had been completed, but not later than February 20.

Dos Santos would be held at the Moot police cells in Pretoria until then.

"I'm all right, " he told reporters after the short hearing.

Asked why he opted to return to Mozambique voluntarily, Dos Santos said: "I just want to finish this matter."

About the sentence due to be handed down to him on Friday, he said: "It will be like God wills."

Cardoso, the editor and owner of the independent Metical newspaper, was shot dead with his driver in November 2000 while travelling in Maputo.

At the time he was investigating the country's largest banking scandal -- the 1996 theft of US14-million from the Commercial Bank of Mozambique.