Africa-Press – Angola. The President of the Republic, João Lourenço, denied the allegations of political persecution, as part of the ongoing fight against corruption in the country since September 2017.
In an exclusive interview, the Angolan Head of State said that there are many citizens grappling with justice, recognizing that, despite efforts, the problem of corruption will take time to disappear.
“You cannot expect to end corruption in five years, I don’t even know if any country has ended, in the true sense of the word, with corruption”, he said, stressing that the problem “is not that there is corruption, it is that there is impunity”. .
The Holder of the Executive Power considered that Isabel dos Santos is “just one” among several citizens with justice and is not her political rival.
“I don’t see her as my political rival. Political persecution? An opponent is persecuted and MPLA’s opponents are known,” said President João Lourenço.
As for the process concerning the former Vice-President of the Republic, Manuel Vicente, the Head of State said that it was a case of sovereignty and that it was not Angola that caused what became known as “annoying” between the two countries.
Manuel Vicente was accused in Portugal of the crime of active corruption against a public prosecutor, Orlando Figueira, but the defense appealed, alleging that the former Vice-President was not constituted an arguido or notified of the accusation.
Still in Portugal, the Public Prosecutor’s Office accused Manuel Vicente of crimes of active corruption, money laundering and forgery of documents within the scope of Operation Fizz.
In May 2018, the Lisbon Court of Appeal decided to send Manuel Vicente’s case to Angola and admitted that the former Vice-President of the Republic enjoyed immunity, so he could not have been constituted as an accused or accused.
He underlined that it was the Portuguese judicial authorities who decided to take a ruler of that caliber to the court.
I am not imagining Angola, continued the President of the Republic, having the audacity, for example, to take José Sócrates to court if, eventually, he had committed a crime in Angola.
“Fortunately, the outcome was good (…) if it had taken longer, it might have left wounds, but I must guarantee that it didn’t leave any”, noted the Head of State.
Regarding the relationship with Álvaro Sobrinho, a Portuguese-Angolan businessman and former director of Banco Espírito Santo in Lisbon and of the BESA bank, he said that he needs to have reasons to stop having relationships with people.
“He was not tried, he was not convicted, if he appears here I will not turn my back on him for sure, until proven otherwise he is a free citizen”, he said.
In the interview, João Lourenço stated that “in Europe it is not normal to ask heads of state to account for cases of corruption, nobody asks President Marcelo about the José Sócrates case”.
However, said the holder of the Executive Power, sometimes it is understood that in Africa it is different, particularly in Angola”, which he considered unfair. “This type of differentiated treatment is not fair”.
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