Africa-Press – Cape verde. The hearing of former presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane at the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Maputo, scheduled for this morning, has been postponed until Tuesday, said a source from the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office (PGR).
The postponement was decided after the request submitted this morning by an agent for Venâncio Mondlane at the PGR, who in the meantime rescheduled the hearing for Tuesday, at 9:00 local time (two hours less in Lisbon), according to the same source.
“He [Venâncio Mondlane] will be heard as part of a criminal case filed last year,” a source from the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP) previously explained to Lusa.
This is one of at least two publicly known cases that are being filed against Mondlane at the PGR, following the demonstrations that the politician has led since October against the election results.
The former presidential candidate has not made any public statements since Wednesday, when the Mozambican police fired shots to disperse a crowd following a caravan led by the politician, which precipitated his escape from the scene.
On November 22nd of last year, the Mozambican Public Prosecutor’s Office demanded compensation of 1.5 million euros for the damages caused by the demonstrations in recent weeks in Maputo province, in a new lawsuit against Mondlane and Podemos, the party that supported him until February of this year.
This was the second civil lawsuit of this kind, following another that the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed with the Maputo City Judicial Court (TJCM), only regarding damages in the capital, requesting compensation of 32,377,276.46 meticais (486 thousand euros).
On January 27, the PGR announced the opening of proceedings considering that the self-proclaimed “presidential decree” of former presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane subverts the principles of the democratic state.
At issue was a document signed and released by Mondlane at the time, entitled “decree”, published in the self-proclaimed “Jornal do Povo”, with 30 measures for the next 100 days, and in one of them, the politician states that “it is up to the people, to the victims, to establish themselves as an autonomous court that issues sentences to stop the macabre wave of the UIR, GOE and Sernic”, referring to units of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique that he accused of “incessant blaze of summary executions”.
“The publication of the alleged decree, by the same citizen, constitutes a flagrant violation (…) of the Constitution of the Republic, since this act constitutes a prerogative reserved for the competent bodies of the State and is published in the Official Gazette”, the prosecutor’s office added in a statement.
Mondlane, named by the Constitutional Council as the second most voted candidate in the presidential elections of October 9, is leading the biggest challenge to the election results that Mozambique has seen since the first multi-party elections in 1994.
The vote gave victory to Daniel Chapo, already sworn in as the fifth President of Mozambique.
Since the beginning of the demonstrations in October, at least 353 people have died following clashes between the police and the demonstrators, including around two dozen minors, and around 3,500 have been injured during the protests, according to the electoral platform Decide, a non-governmental organization that is monitoring the process.
The Mozambican government confirmed at least 80 deaths, in addition to the destruction of 1,677 commercial establishments, 177 schools and 23 health units during the demonstrations.
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