Maputo, Mozambique — A prominent parliamentary deputy from Mozambique's main opposition party has issued a thinly veiled death threat against Attorney General Joaquim Madeira.
David Alone of the former rebel movement, Renamo, has said Madeira was digging his own grave by requesting a waiver of parliamentary immunity of several Renamo deputies so that they could be prosecuted.
During Tuesday's debate on Madeira's annual report, presented in parliament last week, Alone attacked the request from Madeira's office for lifting the parliamentary immunity of Renamo deputies linked to offences arising out of riots on 9 November 2000, and disturbances during the 1999 election campaign.
"What is the prize they have promised you for harassing the representatives of the people ?" asked Alone. "You are digging your own grave. Leave the deputies in peace. Go after the untouchables, and leave the deputies alone".
He claimed that the attempt to lift Renamo deputies' immunity "has nothing to do with the law and is merely political".
Alone was given every chance to withdraw his offending remark. "You said the Attorney General is digging his own grave", said Sergio Vieira, of the ruling Frelimo Party.
"A few weeks ago, one of the assistant attorneys general, Albino Macamo, was shot in an attempt on his life. Is there any connection?"
But Alone refused to reply, and declined even to dissociate Renamo from the attack against Macamo in February.
Alone was the main Renamo speaker in the debate, and chose to fill his speech with insults. He described Madeira as "a puppet of the cruel and blood-thirsty Frelimo regime", whose report had been "tedious and very vague".
"Justice doesn't exist in Mozambique", he declared. "It's been replaced by the law of the jungle and the principle of every man for himself".
He listed cases which allegedly had never come to court, and which Madeira had been unable to explain.
But Alone had clearly not done his homework - one of the cases he mentioned, the 12 tonnes of the drug hashish seized in the northern province of Cabo Delgado, led to a trial three years ago in which 16 of the 19 accused were sentenced to jail terms of between two and 24 years.
A second drug case lamented by Alone concerned the clandestine factory making mandrax pills that was discovered in the city of Matola in 1995.
He failed to mention that the ten Indians and Pakistanis arrested at the drug factory were defended by Maximo Dias, who is now a prominent colleague of Alone's in the Renamo parliamentary group.
Thanks to Dias's intervention, the ten were released, and promptly fled the country, thus ensuring that the true owner of the factory has never been named.
For Frelimo, Teodato Hunguana launched a vigorous defence of the equality of all citizens, including deputies, before the law.
The principle of parliamentary immunity, he said, could not be used "as a shield under which crimes can be committed with impunity".
He accused Alone of "threatening to send the Attorney General to Lhanguene (the main cemetery in Maputo) for doing his job properly".
Parliamentary immunity, said Hunguana, was necessary in order to defend the legislature against possible interference from the executive or judicial branches of the state, and it amounted to "a strengthened freedom of expression for deputies".
But it did not cover acts or words that had nothing to do with their parliamentary duties.
For instance, said Hunguana, there could be no immunity when it came to "ripping up other parties' election propaganda. That's a simple electoral offence, and the fact that the offender is a deputy is irrelevant".
There could be no impunity for crimes committed by deputies. "We are not untouchable", stressed Hunguana.
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Madeira himself, to loud applause from the Frelimo benches, pointed out that the threat issued by Alone was precisely the sort of behaviour that could lead to a request for the lifting of parliamentary immunity.
"There are no untouchables. A crime is a crime", stressed Madeira. "A judge is serving a prison sentence. Attorneys are being prosecuted. So why should deputies not be put on trial when they commit crimes?"
As for the "prizes" Alone claimed he was offered, Madeira retorted that he took up his new post last year, not for money, but because he regarded it as his patriotic duty.
There were no material gains involved because he was already at the top of his career (as a judge on the Supreme Court when President Joaquim Chissano asked him to accept the job of Attorney-General).
Madeira pointed out that his office remained desperately short of staff. There should be six assistant attorneys general, but currently there are only three, one of whom, Macamo, is still recovering from the attempt on his life.
