Maputo — One of those accused of murdering Mozambique's best known journalist, Carlos Cardoso, is demanding the right to use a mobile phone in his prison cell.
Momade Assif Abdul Satar (better known by the nickname "Nini") has not only complained that the police confiscated the cellphone smuggled into his cell - he has demanded the right to reply to an article on the matter published in the 14 july issue of the Sunday paper "Domingo".
And the reply has appeared - but not in "Domingo". An entire page of this week's issue of the rival weekly "Savana" is devoted to Satar's reply, with a headline reading "the right of reply that "Domingo" is not publishing".
It would be difficult to imagine Satar making a more idiotic claim - but it may deceive those who know nothing abour newspaper publication dates. For "Domingo" appears on a Sunday - so the earliest a reply to an article published on 14 July could appear would be 21 July. "Savana", however, hits the streets on Fridays.
So it was physically impossible for "Domingo" to publish Satar's right of reply before the 19 July issue of "Savana".
The latest issue of "Domingo" gives a further good reason for not publishing it - Satar did not send the article to "Domingo" at all, but planted it directly on "Savana".
"He did not send us any text at all for publication", said the paper, "and if he had sent us one, we would only be able to publish it today".
"Savana" also knows when "Domingo" is published, it added, and "will also know why it is going along with this sort of thing, when it is very well aware that its collaborator is lying".
One factor enabling Satar's piece to slip into "Savana", which "Domingo" is perhaps unaware of, is that the new editor of "Savana", Fernando Goncalves, is out of the country. He is tidying up his affairs in Zimbabwe, where he has worked for several years, before returning definitively to Mozambique to assume the editorial reins of "Savana".
As for the substantial issue of the use of mobile phones in prisons, Satar argues that what is not forbidden is allowed, and that, since the prison regulations do not mention mobile phones, it must be perfectly legitimate for a man accused of heinous crimes to use one.
"Domingo" points out that the prison regulations were written in 1954, decades before the invention of the mobile phone.
The paper remarks that, using the same logic that what is not specifically forbidden must be allowed, Satar could bring a pack of dogs or a herd of cows into the prison. They are not mentioned in the regulations either.
When "Domingo" consulted the General Commander of the Mozambican police, Miguel dos Santos, he confirmed that cell phones are indeed banned: the communication materials that prisoners are allowed are notebooks, pens and pencils.
The whole point about preventive detention, the paper adds, is to ensure that prisoners regarded as dangerous do not communicate with the outside world, for fear that they might pervert the course of justice.
Which is precisely what Satar has been doing. He boasts of using informers to gather information for him, and bombards the press with spurious accusations of criminal behaviour on the part of the former head of the Maputo Criminal Investigation Police (PIC), Antonio Frangulis, or the judge dealing with the Cardoso murder case, Augusto Paulino.
Much of Satar's copious output (doubtless drafted by his lawyers) has been published as a serious of paid adverts in "Savana" over the past year. But Friday's piece was an unpaid bit of straightforward propaganda for Satar, which "Savana" had not the slightest legal or moral obligation to publish.
Satar's "investigations" against his foes are based on their cell phone invoices. In his paid adverts, he openly boasted of obtaining other people's invoices from the cell phone company M- Cell. Of course, it is entirely illicit for M-Cell to make clients' phone records available to anyone else except the duly accredited judicial authorities.
And if an M-Cell employee can be bribed into providing copies of the computerised invoices to Satar's men, they can also be persuaded to alter them so that they show phone calls that were never made, and delete ones that were made.
Some of the accusations made by Satar are clearly libellous. "Domingo" notes that he has accused Frangulis of ordering his arrest in an attempt to extort a million US dollars from him, and Judge Paulino of links with this racketeering.
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"Savana", the paper accuses, has acted as "a loudspeaker" for Satar, and runs the same risk of being sued for libel. The management of Mediacoop, the company that owns "Savana", is furious that Satar's letter was published.
The chairman of the Mediacoop board, Fernando Lima, told AIM on Sunday "it's very unfortunate that "Savana" published that - it shows that the new management of Mediacoop is not fully in charge of editorial operations".
"We don't want our pages to be used in this way", said Lima. "They should be used for good journalism, and not for suspected criminals to pass on their messages".
He said he had assured "Domingo" director Jorge Matine that he was "very upset" that Satar's letter had been published.
"We will investigate how this happened", said Lima. "It's not our policy to allow such things".
