The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) has formally confirmed in writing that the alleged "terrorist conspiracy" connected to the Luanda taxi strike of 28-30 July 2025 never existed. There was no incitement, no violence, no material damage and no criminal plan orchestrated by the leaders of the taxi associations and cooperatives that called the strike. The accusation collapsed entirely, leading to the immediate release of those who had been detained.
What had been presented as a national security threat was, in reality, a case of preventive repression and the political manipulation of criminal law.
On 12 December 2025, Public Prosecutor Luís Bento Júnior extinguished the criminal liability of nine leaders of taxi associations, detained under case file 3724/25-M.ºP.º. Eight had spent five months in pre-trial detention. Among them were Francisco Paciente and Rodrigo Luciano Catimba, president and vice-president of ANATA (National Taxi Association of Angola).
The defendants had been accused of six serious crimes: terrorism, public incitement to crime, participation in riots, endangering public transport, and promotion of vandalism--allegedly arising from the July strike.
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But the prosecutor made the situation unequivocally clear: after analysing the case file, he found that the association leaders had not called for violent acts, had not incited destruction of property, had not instructed others to commit crimes, and had not taken part in any vandalism. They had merely advised citizens to "stay at home," which the prosecution classified as a preventive safety recommendation, not a call to criminal activity.
In the dismissal order dated 15 December 2025, the prosecutor emphasised that Angolan criminal law does not punish opinions, warnings or vague statements. Nor does it allow criminal liability based on subjective interpretation. The conclusion was unambiguous: no crime had been committed.
Prosecutor Luís Bento Júnior confirmed that the strike was legitimate, grounded in economic and labour grievances, and that "stay at home" contained no violent or subversive intent.
The Invented "State of Terror"
This is where the ruling of Judge António Negrão, who presided over the preliminary hearing of case file 3846/25-CE, enters with force. In this case, four defendants -- two Russian nationals (Igor Ratchin Mihailovic and Lev Matveevich Lakhstanov), Angolan journalist Amor Carlos Tomé, and UNITA youth leader Francisco Oliveira "Buka Tanda" -- stand jointly accused of terrorism, espionage, participating in a terrorist organisation, criminal association, and influence trafficking.
The core problem with Negrão's decision is straightforward and grave: the court treats suspicions as established facts. The presumption of innocence is not analysed -- it is ignored.
Across seven pages of tangled syntax and conceptual leaps, the judge simply reproduces the prosecution's narrative as dogma, without offering logical or factual demonstration. In his ruling of 12 January, he declares the existence of a terrorist organisation called "Ciência Política de Angola," allegedly derived from a chain of international structures ultimately linked to the Wagner Group -- as though describing a proven criminal network.
The absurdity becomes blatant when the judge claims that the defendants created a "state of terror" in Angola in July 2025, and presents as evidence... the taxi strike. Yes--the same strike whose case had been formally closed by the Public Prosecutor for lack of any criminal behaviour.
The violence recorded during those days did not come from imaginary terrorists but from the disproportionate force of defence and security services, which left dozens dead and hundreds injured.
Cases like Ana Mubiala, shot in the back while stepping outside to retrieve her child, illustrate the brutality.
Instead of holding accountable those who fired the shots or carried out the beatings, the state constructed a convenient storyline: blame the strikers, accuse them of terrorism.
In a country where a bullet in the back can be erased from official reports and public discourse, the real terror is not in the streets but in the power that legislates, accuses, and fires weapons without consequence.
Erasing the Real Cause
The effort to manufacture a terrorist narrative around the taxi strike serves one primary purpose: to distract from the real crisis -- the chronic failure and political bad faith of the Angolan government in providing public transportation for nearly ten million Luanda residents.
While the capital collapses daily under the weight of mobility paralysis, the institutional response is not to build a functional transport system but to criminalise protest. Addressing the root problem would require competent technocrats, realistic public policy, and an end to systemic waste and looting of state funds.
Here lies the first contradiction within the Office of the Attorney General itself:
- Prosecutor Luís Bento Júnior explicitly states there was no terrorism and no crime in the taxi strike.
- Meanwhile Prosecutor Lina Ventura, in another division of the same court, alleges that the Angolan defendants organised and directly participated in the strike as an act of terrorism.
In paragraph 155 of her indictment, Ventura claims that Oliveira Francisco "assumed overtly partisan tasks to help UNITA obtain power through cooperation with the organisation." She writes that Amor Carlos Tomé "assumed the broad function of recruiting journalists" for alleged acts of terrorism and coup plotting.
The contradictions are structural, not incidental. What the judge describes as "established facts" had already been dismissed by the Public Prosecutor as unproven.
The Negrão Logic
From the outset, Judge Negrão assumes, as doctrine, the existence of a "criminal organisation" in Angola created by the Russian defendants. He writes:
"the terrorist organisation later designated as Ciência Política de Angola (...) installed itself in Angola."
There is not a single piece of evidence in the case file supporting this claim. No structure, no hierarchy, no resources, no objectives, no activities. Yet hypothesis is transformed into certainty.
He then expands the storyline, drawing a chain of supposed entities:
"It becomes clear (...) that the project Ciência Política de Angola results from Angola Politology, which derives from Africa Politology, which originates from Africa Org, and this from the Wagner Group."
In this imaginative crescendo, all these entities are interconnected and operate clandestinely in Angola, again without any evidence.
It is terrorism by verbal association.
By judicial fiat, a clandestine international terror organisation is born -- one that exists only in the prosecutor's accusation and in the judge's interpretation of it.
The irrationality peaks when Negrão asserts that the defendants created a "state of terror" in July 2025. The text reads:
"acts that culminated in the state of terror verified in July 2025."
What "acts" is he referring to?
The taxi strike -- which the Public Prosecutor had already determined was not a crime.
It is in this context that the case against journalist Amor Carlos Tomé and UNITA youth leader Francisco Oliveira reveals its political utility.
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When the state kills defenceless citizens and wishes to avoid accountability, it manufactures a storyline of "infiltrated terrorists," "foreign organisations," and "destabilisation plans."
The state that kills unarmed citizens recasts itself as the victim.
Those who expose state violence become suspects.
Those who demand justice become conspirators.
Political Terror Through the Judiciary
The political misuse of the word "terrorism" in Angola is neither new nor accidental. It follows a consistent pattern.
In 2017, the state attempted to transform religious faith into an armed threat by arresting Aisha Lopes, a Muslim fashion designer and former rapper. A headscarf, books, and social media discussions were enough for SIC officers to fabricate a grotesque narrative of "ISIS connections," subjecting her to abuse, humiliation and interrogations that endangered her newborn child.
There was no organisation, no violence, no intent -- only the politically convenient fear of Islam.
In 2025, the victims were ordinary citizens in the streets.
In 2026, the victims are anyone who speaks.
In 2027, the victims will be whoever remains.
All of this converges toward one objective: institutionalising fear before the 2027 elections.
And the preferred targets are:
- independent journalism,
- and the usual suspect -- UNITA.
"Terrorism" in Angolan law is an exceptional crime requiring concrete acts, means, intent, organisation and purpose. None of these elements exist in the archived cases -- nor in those kept artificially alive.
As 2027 approaches, the question is no longer "Who will be accused next?" but: "Who will still dare to speak?"
Because when justice becomes a weapon, silence becomes survival.
