A man wanted for the 2000 murder of Mozambican journalist Carlos Cardoso, was arrested in Pretoria on Thursday after almost four months on the run, police reported on Friday.
Anibal Antonio Dos Santos Junior (31) was arrested at a house in Wierda Park shortly after 3pm, detective services divisional commissioner Johan de Beer said in a statement.
Dos Santos and five others have been charged with Cardoso’s murder. He escaped from a Mozambican jail in September during the trial.
The six men were expected to be sentenced later in the day, De Beer said.
Dos Santos would appear in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Friday pending his extradition to Mozambique.
Cardoso, the editor and owner of the independent Metical newspaper, was shot dead with his driver in November 2000 while travelling in Maputo.
At the time he was investigating the country’s largest banking scandal — the 1996 theft of $14-million from the Commercial Bank of Mozambique.
Cardoso had reportedly urged the attorney-general’s office to try all those involved and implicated a prominent family, the Abdul Satar’s.
It is alleged that in 1996 the family opened accounts at the bank, into which they deposited dozens of worthless cheques before withdrawing $14-million in cash.
Ayob Abdul Satar and bank manager Vincente Ramaya were charged with ordering Cardoso’s killing. Abdul Satar’s brother, Momade Assife Abdul Satar, Manuel Fernandes, and Carlitos Rachid Cassamo were charged with carrying it out along with Dos Santos Junior. – Sapa