Maputo | Saturday
TWO Mozambican policemen were Friday sentenced to 17 and 18 years each in jail over last year’s death of 83 detainees from suffocation at a police holding cell in Mozambique’s northern town of Montepuez, state media reported Saturday.
The officer on duty on the night of the deaths, Tereciano Mithale, was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. Horacio Nhoca, who was in charge of the cell, received a 17-year sentence.
Both men were ordered to pay 20-million meticais in compensation to the families of each of the victims.
The two were on duty on November 9, 2000 when the 83 prisoners — most of them opposition Renamo supporters — were arrested for taking part in violent anti-government demonstrations.
The inmates died from suffocation, starvation and thirst, according to findings of a local Mozambican human rights group.
A team of government doctors concluded that the main cause of the deaths in the prison at Montepuez, 1 600 kilometers north of Maputo, was suffocation.
The Mozambican Association of Human Rights (DHD) said about 120 inmates were crammed into a cell of only 21 square meters. The exact number of the deaths is still unclear.
In addition to the 83 jail deaths, at least 47 people died and 150 were wounded during the clashes between protestors and police in central and northern areas which are traditional strongholds of the former rebel Mozambique National Resistance (Renamo).
The anti-government demonstrations were staged to protest the results of the December 1999 general elections, which Renamo claimed were rigged. – AFP
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