Mozambique
Cardoso's suspected killer escapes Mozambican jail

afrol News, 3 September - One of the six men accused of murdering Mozambique's best known journalist, Carlos Cardoso, has escaped from Maputo's top security jail. Cardoso was killed almost two years ago, uncovering a corruption scandal.

A police spokesman yesterday confirmed to Cardoso's widow, Nina Berg, that the suspect, Anibal Antonio dos Santos Junior (better known by his underworld nickname of Anibalzinho), had escaped from the prison at about 23h00 on Sunday night, September 1, 2002. No further details of the escape are available, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).

The trial of Anibalzinho and the five other accused was expected to start in the next few weeks, following unsuccessful appeals by the defence lawyers against the case going to trial. Judge Augusto Paulino must still set the trial date.

Cardoso, editor of the independent newssheet "Metical" and a former director of the Mozambican news agency AIM, was assassinated on 22 November 2000. After a vigorous public campaign by Cardoso's family, friends and colleagues, the police arrested suspects in February and March 2001.

With the help of the Swazi police, Anibalzinho and a second suspect, Manuel Fernandes, were arrested inside Swaziland and brought back to Maputo. It was discovered that Anibalzinho is a Portuguese citizen, but was also using a forged Mozambican passport in the name of Carlos Pinto da Cruz.

A story published at the time by the weekly paper "Savana" noted that Anibalzinho had good police connections arising from his business as a trafficker in luxury vehicles, which he would bring in from South Africa and resell in Maputo.

In March 2001 four other people were picked up. Carlos Rachid Cassamo was alleged, along with Anibalzinho and Fernandes, to be a member of the hit squad that carried out the killing. Former bank manager Vicente Ramaya, and the wealthy businessmen Ayob Abdul Satar and Momade Assife Abdul Satar, were arrested as the "moral authors" of the crime - they allegedly paid the assassins to murder Cardoso.

Ramaya and members of the Abdul Satar family were the main suspects in the case of a huge bank fraud in 1996, which saw the equivalent of US$14 million siphoned out of the Commercial Bank of Mozambique (BCM) on the eve of its privatisation.

Cardoso had followed this case tenaciously, repeatedly demanding that those who swindled the BCM be brought to justice. He also investigated the other shady businesses of the Abdul Satars, including loan sharking and illegal wire-tapping.

Since March 2001, all six suspects have been in the top security jail, while investigations continue. Their lawyers have used every device available to delay any trial, but eventually ran out of room for manoeuvre. Before Anibalzinho's escape, it was generally expected that the trial would begin in September or October, MISA reports.

- Anibalzinho has demonstrated the truth of the accusations levied against the country's prisons by Attorney General Joaquim Madeira earlier this year, MISA Researcher Zoe Titus comment. Reporting to Parliament on 6 March, Madeira declared "Inmates escape from almost all the country's prisons, sometimes in a spectacular fashion. Preliminary investigations indicate that these escapes enjoyed the connivance of prison guards, or were at least facilitated by their inexcusable negligence."

Sources: Based on MISA and afrol archives

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