Twenty people went on trial on Friday accused of participating in the 1996 theft of $14-million from the Mozambique Commercial Bank.
The accused include former branch manager Vicente Ramaya, businessman Ayob Abdul Satar and his brother Momade Assife, already in jail for their part in the killing of journalist Carlos Cardoso, who was investigating the fraud.
Prosecutors formally presented the charges against the 20, most of them bank employees, but they were not asked to plead.
The case continues on Monday.
Human rights activists, meanwhile, protested the conditions under which some of the accused are being held.
Police are keeping Ramaya and the Satar brothers handcuffed and shackled inside their cells following last year’s escape of Anibal dos Santos, also convicted in Cardoso’s killing. Dos Santos was re-arrested soon after in the South African capital, Pretoria, and returned to a Mozambique jail.
Alice Mabota, chair of the Human Rights League, said Ramaya and the Satar brothers were showing signs of trauma that could compromise their ability to give evidence and the legitimacy of their trial.
”The psychological state of the prisoners was seriously affected by the violation of their rights”, she said. ”Ayob Satar is going crazy.”
National police spokesperson Nataniel Macamo said their treatment conformed with international norms. He said the prisoners are ”able to move and do everything except escape.”
Cardoso (49) founder and editor of the independent newspaper Metical, was shot in his car on November 20, 2000.
He had accused prominent Mozambicans of being involved in the bank robbery, among them a former attorney general, a former Cabinet minister, and President Joaquim Chissano’s son, Nyimpine. – Sapa-AP