operatives
1996 Nobel Peace Prize winner Jos Ramos Horta has come out in support of Robert McBride, writes Wally Mbhele
Documents presented to Mozambique’s Supreme Court by Robert McBride’s defence counsel allege that senior Mozambican police and military officers are involved in smuggling guns into South Africa.
One of the two state witnesses, Alexandra Uamba (alias Mamba), is a gun-trafficking middleman, charges the defence team, which says this fact was revealed by McBride’s arrest.
If police investigations are pursued, the team argues, it could be ascertained who are the ”corrupt police and military men who supplied” Mamba with weapons.
McBride, arrested in Mozambique on March 9 this year, is facing charges of gun-running, association with wrongdoers and espionage. His team is appealing against the charges.
In court papers, the defence team argues that McBride’s arrest has also helped expose the main witness against him, Vusi Mbatha (alias Manuel Alfeu, Manuel Nhanombe and Vusi Madida), as a ”poor devil, manipulated by the South African police, linked to the former apartheid regime and an enemy of the new political dispensation”.
The defence has produced several sworn affidavits supporting McBride’s bid for freedom, including statements from officials of the South African Secret Service and the National Intelligence Agency praising McBride’s ”valuable information on counter-espionage in the best interests of South Africa and its new Constitution” and his participation in an investigation into violence in South Africa.
The 1996 Nobel Peace Prize winner, East Timorese activist Jos Ramos Horta, also praises McBride’s commitment ”in the fight for just causes, such as the fight for the security and stability of his country and the region”.
In a letter, Andr van der Byl, chair of the Independent Commission for the Control of Arms (ICCA), confirms McBride’s investigations into arms trafficking, police corruption in the licensing of firearms and the ”problem of illegal firearms used for the practice of violent and political crimes”.
Led by a Mozambican attorney, Albano Silva, instructed by Jos Nascimento, the defence team suggests that a joint investigation into cross-border trafficking can be pursued with the co-operation of the ICCA with McBride’s assistance.
”This matter is very serious for the two countries, in that any instability experienced in South Africa would have negative consequences for Mozambique,” argues McBride’s counsel.
Turning to McBride’s continued detention, his lawyers say it is a ”shameful show that can only denigrate the Mozambican institutions and create a poor image of the justice administration” as individual interests are confused with the interests of the state. No date has been set for the Supreme Court appeal hearing, following a decision by Judge Carlos Caetano in April that he should be charged.
According to the defence, Caetano did not comply with the law. ”He failed to govern his conduct on a basis of exemption, impartiality and objectivity,” argues Silva.
According to Silva, the prosecution was ”waiting for the evidence to fall from heaven”, ignoring the fact that charging ”a citizen” and bringing him to court is a matter of great responsibility. Unsubstantiated statements, taken from Mbatha and Mamba, cannot justify keeping such a person in jail for so long, he says.
Mamba has confessed to smuggling weapons from Mozambique to South Africa. He has been involved in such activities since 1992. His clients in South Africa included an alleged warlord linked to the Inkatha Freedom Party, identified as a ”Mr Zulu” of Dube hostel in Soweto, according to records presented before the court.
McBride was arrested in a trap set in Mamba’s house in April. Mamba tipped off the Mozambique police that Mbatha intended to buy illegal guns. McBride accompanied Mbatha to the house but remained outside in the car.
Meanwhile, Mbatha – who knew that McBride was investigating Mamba – told his South African Police Service (SAPS)handlers that McBride also wanted to buy weapons to overthrow the South African government.
The defence contends that Mamba tipped off the Mozambican police about Mbatha in revenge after Mbatha allegedly denounced Mamba to South African police as a gun-runner in 1993.
Mamba was only arrested several days after McBride and Mbatha was picked up; in the meantime, he’d been allowed to visit South Africa. After his arrest, Mamba apparently revealed to Mozambican police that the money paid to him by Mbatha for the purchase of weapons was given to a Mozambican director of Police Intelligence Services.
Evidence presented to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission suggested that one of the South African policemen linked to the McBride investigation, Superintendent ”Lappies” Labuschagne, is a friend of this director.
”If it’s true, one can discover from Mamba’s connections with the Mozambican police who, inside the police, has assisted the gun-smuggling activities throughout the years stretching from 1991 to last year,” says McBride’s team.
A photocopy of Mbatha’s passport says he was born in ”Westbanke” in South Africa. There is no such place. Statements by family members claim that Mbatha’s name is Manuel Alfeu Mbatha and that he was born in Morrubene in the province of Inhambane in Mozambique.
”His exact age must be determined since it is hardly credible that he [would have] been abandoned by his family before allegedly emigrating to South Africa at the age of 10. This person must be made accountable for the use of false documents and identity,” McBride’s counsel argues.
Mbatha, says the defence, is alleged to have changed his testimony after being manipulated or threatened by the SAPS officers who co-operated with their Mozambican counterparts.
In one of his several statements, Mbatha claimed that Mamba had supplied weapons to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela from October 1996 to September last year. Such weapons were for a political and military organisation called Fapla, founded in 1995 with the aim of overthrowing the South African government.
”Mbatha referred to meetings held between Madikizela-Mandela and Mamba and the involvement of two Mozambican generals in [the] military training of this movement … the Mozambican police officers had the statements prepared in conjunction with members of the South African police who took them to Mbatha, who merely signed them,” the lawyers argue.
”Mbatha has made serious allegations against Mozambique. The involvement of two generals in the training of 70 Fapla men could not have been left unnoticed by the Ministry of National Defence. The Mozambican government ran the risk of becoming involved in the conspiracy against [President Nelson Mandela]. The [ministry] was not questioned about the veracity of Mbatha’s allegations.”
Mbatha has admitted that he was an informer for the SAPS, keeping them abreast of investigations he was going to do in Mozambique with McBride.
”How can a person like this one, who is nothing more than a puppet in the hands of members of the police linked to the previous regime of apartheid, merit any credibility from the Mozambican authorities when he is still showing the Mozambican authorities as being involved in a conspiracy against Mandela?”
According to the charge sheet, weapons which the Mozambican police sought to link to McBride were handed by police Inspector Jos Rafael Folege of the Anti-Crime Brigade to the investigating officer, Joaquim Manuel.
Originally Folege had alleged the weapons were seized from McBride. However, says the defence team, nowhere in the delivery document does Folege mention that weapons were taken from McBride. Instead, the document says the weapons were seized from Mbatha.
”It is not known when, and under what circumstances, Folege found the weapons he handed to the investigating officer. It is also not known from where such weapons came. If the serial numbers of the weapons recorded in the delivery note are genuine, it should not be difficult to prove that they came from … police headquarters in Maputo, it not being known whether they were brought by the police into Mamba’s house or not.” Police entrapment is illegal in Mozambique.