Mozambicans on Saturday hailed a court here for sentencing six men to long jail terms for murdering a top investigative reporter, saying the verdict will restore confidence in the country’s judicial system.
On Friday the court sentenced the six men to between 23 and 28 years behind bars for the 2000 murder of journalist Carlos Cardoso while he was investigating a banking scandal.
The jail terms were handed down a day after police in South Africa arrested the key suspect behind the murder who has been on the run since his escape from a Mozambican jail in September.
Cardoso’s widow, Nina Berg, said she was ”relieved” at Friday’s outcome, but lamented that it would not bring her husband back. Former justice minister Ossumane Aly Dauto said the conclusion of the trial was a good starting point for the country’s judicial system to improve its reputation, presently seen as riddled with corruption.
”The prosecutors and the court actually made a tremendous effort,” Dauto said. The mastermind of the Cardoso murder, Anibal Antonio dos Santos, or Anibalzinho, received the longest jail term of 28 years. He arrived back in Maputo late Friday following his extradition from South Africa and was taken directly to Maputo’s maximum security prison.
Carlos Cauio, chairman of the Mozambican Bar Association, Saturday hailed the ”brilliant work” done by the court.
The makeshift court set up inside the maximum security prison was the centre of startling revelations during the 38-day trial. Three of the six suspects said that Nyimpine Chissano, the eldest son of President Joaquim Chissano, ordered Cardoso’s murder. The reporter had been probing the disappearance of $14-million from the main state bank.
The 32-year-old Chissano denies the charges, but is currently being investigated by the public prosecutor’s office along with two business associates.
While delivering the sentences on Friday Judge Augusto Paulino said the case would not end with the jailing of the six men. Those currently being investigated by the Attorney General’s office in connection with the murder and the financial scandal that resulted in Cardoso’s death could be brought to court, he said. The maximum jail sentence in Mozambique is 24 years, but the court said that because an accumulation of crimes were committed by some of the six, longer terms were given. – Sapa-AFP