This report summarizes the case of Aisha Lopes and co-accused, originally published by Maka Angola in 2017. It demonstrates how the Angolan state fabricated terrorism allegations against innocent citizens -- using intimidation, torture, and legal manipulation -- in ways that mirror the recent cases of "terrorism" and "espionage" against journalists, youth leaders and association members. The Aisha Lopes case is included here so observers can understand the continuity of abusive investigative methods, the criminalization of religious minorities, and the systematic invention of internal enemies for political purposes.
Background of the case
On 2 December 2016, just before dawn, more than twenty agents from the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) and associated security services stormed the apartment of Aisha Lopes, a 36-year-old Angolan fashion designer specializing in Islamic clothing. They seized her, her husband Angélico Bernardo da Costa (also known as Mujahid Kenyata), and confiscated everything in sight: laptops, telephones, more than 150 books, identification documents, medical reports, bank cards, even children's belongings. "They did not leave a single piece of paper in the house," she recalled.
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Aisha had given birth by caesarean section only weeks earlier. Her newborn son was handled brutally by officers who mocked him: "the terrorist's baby," "speak Somali to the child," while exposing him to the sun for hours. During her ten-hour interrogation, six officers took shifts threatening to beat her, withholding water and refusing medication essential for her diabetic condition. She repeatedly fainted. When her son was returned to her, his face was burned, his lips peeled from sun exposure.
The SIC then moved to her small clothing shop in the Bairro Mártires de Kifangondo. Because the space was too small for the eighteen officers who accompanied her, they knocked down mannequins, broke walls looking for imaginary "concealed weapons" or equipment and declared themselves disappointed that "the leader of the terrorists in Angola" had no incriminating materials.
Aisha and her husband -- who simply sold clothing to support their family -- were accused, along with five young men, of being members of the Islamic State (ISIS/Daesh). The charges, brought by prosecutor Eugénia Santos under Angola's Anti-Money Laundering and Anti-Terrorism Law (Law 12/10), claimed that the group had pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and spread "radical teachings" in Angola. As "proof" of terrorism, the state listed items such as five laptops, 11 phones, seven USB drives, 168 books, two Angolan passports, a PlayStation console, personal backpacks and miscellaneous documents -- all seized from several households.
The evidence that proves nothing
One mother of a co-defendant, Khadija Salvador, explained that even items belonging to children were taken. "They took the PlayStation of a visiting nephew, car papers, children's phones... everything."
The state's expert analysis concluded that "38 of the books are political, with radical and subversive tendencies." No contextual analysis was provided; no link was established between the books and any alleged terrorist plot. Merely owning political literature was considered incriminating.
The prosecution also admitted that it had not received any response from international security partners, including Interpol and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, regarding Angola's official position on ISIS. It had also received no reply to a request for judicial cooperation from Brazil. In other words, there was no external confirmation of any terrorist activity -- yet the state moved forward.
An Angolan intelligence specialist familiar with the case dismissed the accusations as completely unfounded: "There is no material or moral basis for criminal responsibility. The process is empty in terms of investigation. It lacks any juridical coherence."
The interrogation process
Aisha later detailed the absurd and coercive nature of the interrogation. Officers repeated nonsensical questions:
- Since when is your husband a jihadist?
- What is the date of the planned terrorist attack in Angola?
- When do you travel to Syria?
- Who are the terrorist cell leaders?
They threatened to beat her until she provided the answers they wanted. When they confronted her with printed screenshots from her Facebook page, they misrepresented her posts. Her page was dedicated almost entirely to Islamic fashion design and to a women's social program she created, "Tea Social," meant to promote understanding between Muslim and non-Muslim women. The SIC interpreted this as recruitment activity for ISIS.
She explained that during the interrogation officers twisted her online comments, fabricating statements she never made. When she was forced to sign a deposition, she was not allowed to read it. Later, during a confrontation session with the prosecutor, she discovered that they had inserted in her supposed testimony statements describing mujahideen as "bomb-planters, killers of children and decapitators," which she had never said. When the prosecutor scratched out the false statements, a new prosecutor appeared the next day and forced her to sign another eight-page version where the false statements had been reinstated.
The conditions of detention
Aisha and the seven other accused were held for eleven days at a non-operational court facility in Cacuaco. She recounts that the stitches from her cesarean section burst open three times, yet she was denied medical care. Armed guards from the Presidential Guard Unit kept weapons pointed at their heads continuously. Even small movements provoked threats. They were forced to remain seated for hours, surrounded by armed guards who manipulated their weapons whenever the detainees moved.
Amnesty International Angola and Mozambique coordinator Mariana de Abreu described the treatment as "grave," noting the violence, threats and mistreatment of the newborn child.
On 13 December, Aisha and Fátima Salvador were released on conditional terms. Others remained detained: Angélico Bernardo da Costa, Joel Said Salvador Paulo, Bruno Alexandre Lopes dos Santos, Lando Panzo José ("Mohamed Lando") and Dala Justino Camuejo ("Yassin Ramadan Camueji").
Historical context of persecution
Aisha Lopes's persecution cannot be understood outside the broader pattern of Angola's security apparatus. Her family carries historical trauma: her father, Ndom Zuão de Gouveia Kieto, was Director of State Security until 1986, when he was accused in secret of attempted coup and sentenced to twelve years in prison. He later died in 2003, reportedly poisoned by a former colleague from the DISA (the predecessor of modern intelligence services). This personal history shaped the brutality Aisha experienced.
Rui Verde, Maka Angola's legal analyst, observed that the prosecution applied a distorted version of "Enemy Criminal Law," a concept developed by German scholar Günther Jakobs, in which certain individuals cease to be treated as citizens with rights and instead as enemies to be neutralized. In Verde's words: "The application of these norms to Aisha Lopes reveals that the Angolan state considers its citizens as enemies."
Religious persecution and political theatre
Aisha and her husband converted to Islam in the 1990s through exposure to African-American history, pan-Africanist thought, and the legacy of Malcolm X. Both were influencers in the early Angolan hip hop scene ("Black Queen" and "MC Jegas"), later turning to Islamic faith and modest fashion design.
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The state, however, has maintained a stance of hostility towards Islam. It refuses to legally recognize the religion and has ordered mosques closed. The government publicly asserts that Islamic practice in Angola is "illegal." The president of Angola's Islamic community, David Já, addressed the arrests directly: "This is theatre. A farce by the security services. Angola wants international attention. They detain young Muslims active on social media to silence them."
The Aisha case reveals several mechanisms repeatedly used by the Angolan state when fabricating terrorism: overwhelming show of force at the moment of arrest; seizure of everyday objects presented as "terrorist equipment"; coercive interrogations, including threats, deprivation of water and medicine, and humiliation; fabrication of statements in official depositions; deliberate creation of fear to pressure confessions; public framing of innocent citizens as extremists; and political exploitation of the arrests for propaganda.
Conclusion
This case is not an isolated incident but part of a long-standing state practice: the manufacture of internal enemies to justify repression. The Aisha Lopes case demonstrates how an ordinary mother, fashion designer and community organizer was transformed, through state narrative, into a supposed terrorist -- without a single act of violence, ohne evidence of criminal intent, and without any connection to extremist groups. The same pattern persists in the cases examined today.
The lesson is clear: in Angola, under certain political conditions, anyone can be labelled an enemy -- journalist, activist, religious minority, or simply someone whose existence challenges the state's preferred narrative. The cost of such fabrication is borne by families, communities, and the integrity of justice itself.
