Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Mozambican police say they have recovered the camera that was stolen from the independent television station STV under mysterious circumstances on Tuesday night.
The police told STV news editor Emildo Sambo that the camera was found in the possession of three youths in the Maputo neighbourhood of Polana Canico early on Thursday morning.
A police patrol came across the three youths in the street, and one of them was carrying a bag described as “suspicious” on his shoulders. The police demanded that the youths show them what the bag contained – but they then threw it to the ground and ran.
When the police opened the bag, they found it contained the missing STV camera.
The police told Emilio Sambo that they opened fire on the fleeing youths, but without success. There were no further details. Nobody was arrested, and so nobody knows who stole the camera or why.
Sambo did not believe the police story. The camera was in surprisingly good condition, but if it had really been thrown to the ground, there would almost certainly have been some damage.
Sambo believed the story of three thieves abandoning the camera and running into the night was just an attempt to clean up the image of the police.
“Everything indicates that the camera was just taken from one police station to another, in an attempt to deceive public opinion”, said Sambo.
Although the camera has been recovered, it has not yet been handed back to STV. The police told Sambo this is because STV lodged its complaint at the third police precinct, but the camera was found near the 12th precinct. Police administrative procedures are supposedly under way before the camera can be given back to its owners.
The camera was stolen in front of dozens of heavily armed police on Tuesday night, while STV was covering a protest by former members of the now defunct security service, SNASP, in front of the Maputo United Nations offices. They were demanding payment of money that the Mozambican state has supposedly owed them for the past 20 years.
Although many of the ex-SNASP protestors were elderly, and presented no conceivable threat, the police forced them to disperse. While this was happening, the STV crew interviewed the Maputo city police spokesperson, Leonel Muchina.
But in the middle of the interview, a group of men in plain clothes, and using a vehicle without any number plates, attacked the STV team and grabbed their camera. Although the area was swarming with police agents, none of them lifted a finger to stop the theft of the STV equipment, and the thieves drove off in possession of the camera.
STV wonders how it was possible for a group of apparently unarmed thieves to steal a television camera in the presence of armed police officers, none of whom reacted.
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