Maputo, Mozambique — Mozambican Interior Minister Almerino Manhenje on Wednesday announced that suspects had been arrested in connection with the murder of the country's best known journalist, Carlos Cardoso.

Cardoso, editor of the independent newsheet "Metical", and a former director of the Mozambique news agency, AIM, was ambushed and gunned down on a central Maputo street on 22 November 2000.

Manhenje told a Maputo press conference that "some detentions have been made, and some materials used directly and indirectly in the crime have been apprehended".

He did not reveal how many people had been detained, nor did he specify what materials have been seized.

Manhenje said that, in addition to working with the South African, Zimbabwean and Swazi police forces on the murder investigation, the Mozambican authorities had also received assistance from the British police.

The minister's remarks came less than a week after Lucinda Cruz, lawyer for Cardoso's widow, Nina Berg, denounced the failure of the Mozambican police to investigate the murder properly.