Africa-Press – Angola. The lawyer for the company Angola Drill Company (ADC) SA joined as an assistant in the trial involving generals Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior “Kopelipa” and Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento “Dino”, with the purpose of claiming ownership of the land where the CIF One Luanda building was erected and, in return, keeping some of the 25 floors that make it up.
Heráclito Pedro, the lawyer for the aforementioned company, requested the court to attach to the case file 16 documents that support the thesis that his constituent is an interested party in the case. And, on the other hand, to request documentation on the ownership of the land to prove that it is the legitimate owner, in order to include in other cases that it is bringing against the Angolan State for having called into its sphere the ownership of all the assets that belonged to the China International Found (CIF) Angola group because they were allegedly built with public funds.
The presiding judge of the case, Anabela Valente, agreed, in the last session, to the requests of the assistance, although the focus of the trial is the accusation of the practice of the crimes of fraud through defraudation, falsification of documents, criminal association, abuse of power, influence peddling, money laundering and embezzlement.
To convince the court, lawyer Heráclito Pedro said that he consulted the case file and found that the case file did not contain evidence of the delivery of the assets to the Angolan State, nor the aforementioned judicial approval.
According to a source gathered by the newspaper OPAÍS, the involvement of the company CIF in the aforementioned land, which previously served as a car park for employees of the former facilities of the Supreme Military Court and the Military Prosecutor’s Office, occurred when it decided to invest in Angola.
While walking along Avenida do 1.o Congresso do MPLA, in the municipality of Ingombota, close to the former National Assembly, the Sino-British tycoon Sam Pa, detained in China since October 2015 for economic and financial crimes, became interested in the area and approached the former Chief of the Military Household of the President of the Republic, General Kopelipa.
Transfer of land via GRN to the Chinese from CIF
At the time, this general had been appointed, by presidential order, to head the National Reconstruction Office (GRN), which had as one of its missions to maintain contact with the CIF group, as it was involved in many ongoing projects in the country.
Upon hearing from Sam Pa that he intended to build on the site what would become one of the tallest buildings in the country’s capital, with 25 floors, General Kopelipa agreed, authorizing him to make the appropriate use of the land. However, according to our source, the late Adérito Correia, one of the shareholders of the aforementioned company, informed the then Chief of the Military Household that the land belonged to his family.
However, as the construction companies contracted by CIF Angola had already advanced with the foundations of the building in question, they ended up going ahead, having, for this purpose, entered into an agreement with the Angolan company Drill Company, as the holder of the surface rights, in which it was stated that it would keep some floors in exchange for the transfer of the land.
Alleged Chinese-style fraud After the construction works were completed, CIF managers failed to honour the agreement, leaving the company’s partner with no option but to seek legal action. When the State confiscated all the assets of this Chinese business group in Angola, Adérito Correia’s heirs filed a new lawsuit with the same purpose, as they saw a chance of recovering their compensation.
As the building in question has already been registered as property of the Angolan State, the Angola Drill Company filed an action to claim ownership against the State and another to annul the registration of ownership of the land, considering that procedural rules were violated in the processing of this file.
“It also happens that, since 2022, two actions brought by the Angola Drilling Company against the Angolan State have been underway, both of which have already been contested by the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP). We have thus verified the omission in the records of these actions that, in some way, interfere with or condition the decision to be made here”, stressed Heráclito Pedro.
According to the lawyer, in the defense filed in the claim action, on November 4, 2022, the Public Prosecutor’s Office alleged, in defense of the State, the existence of a declaration of delivery of goods recognized in the 2nd Registry Office, a term of delivery and receipt of the goods with an authentication certificate and a judgment approving those documents. In addition, it alleged the existence of the CIF One land registry, in this case, in favor of the State, supported by the aforementioned documents.
However, the homologation sentence states that the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested the homologation of the agreements entered into between the State, represented by the Institute for the Management of State Assets and Participations (IGAPE), and the defendant Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior “Kopelipa”, representing CIF Angola.
Heráclito Pedro said that they made inquiries with the National Asset Recovery Service (SENRA) to consult the asset investigation process with number 2/2020, in order to dispel doubts, but they were refused, with the claim that all the records of this case are already in the possession of the Court.
In this case, in which, in addition to the two generals, the defendants are lawyer Fernando Gomes dos Santos, citizen Yiu Haiming and the companies China International Found (CIF), Plansmart International Limited and Utter Right International Limited, the ownership of the properties is not under discussion, but rather the consent to the crimes mentioned above.
Former director of millionaire CIF Angola says he is in “penury”
Adriano Suculete, lawyer for Yiu Haiming, former director of CIF Angola, declared in court that his client was “unfairly dismissed” a few years ago and that, at the moment, he finds himself without a family and without means of subsistence.
To make the situation even worse, according to the lawyer, the Chinese citizen is limited to staying only in Luanda, as he was subjected to the measure of coercion of freedom under terms of identity and residence five years ago, similar to the measures applied to generals Kopelipa, Dino and lawyer Fernando Gomes dos Santos.
Yiu Haiming attempted to distance himself from any responsibility that may fall on the company, claiming that at the time of the events he was not yet part of its staff and that he is no longer. “All technical legal acts were carried out by the lawyer hired by the two companies [Plansmart International Limited and Utter Right International Limited] which had a single management”, stressed the lawyer.
According to Adriano Suculete, his client was hired to manage the group in 2017 and, during his management, did not carry out any act that could lead to civil or criminal liability. “He is not civilly or criminally liable for the acts carried out by the partners or other members of the current or previous management”, he emphasized.
In order to support his point of view, he claimed that the case file contains a resolution dated 2016 which states that the CIF partners, represented by a single entity, entered into an employment contract with Yiu Haiming which only came into effect the following year, lasting a few months.
However, his work on behalf of the company was remarkable, and he ended up being renewed for several years, until the date on which he was removed and saw all his privileges “diluted” as a result of a legal action that culminated in the seizure of all his company’s assets. It should be noted that the data in the court’s possession indicate that, as a result of these crimes committed by the defendants, the Angolan State was defrauded of more than one billion dollars.
ANGOLA24
For More News And Analysis About Angola Follow Africa-Press
