Africa-Press – Mozambique. Mozambique’s former Finance Minister, Manuel Chang, is continuing to appeal for early release from a United States prison, although this plea has already been rejected once by the Justice Department.
Chang is serving an eight and a half year sentence in the state of Connecticut, after he was found guilty in a New York court on charges of fraud and money laundering arising from Mozambique’s largest financial scandal, known as the case of the “hidden debts”.
The request for early release is based on the 70 year old Chang’s state of health.
The Justice Department attorneys who rejected Chang’s request for compassionate release found none of his arguments convincing.
In their letter to the presiding judge, Nicholas Garaufis, they wrote that Chang “has failed to exhaust his administrative appeal rights and his reasons for requesting this relief are neither extraordinary nor compelling”.
They pointed out that his sentence of 102 months is less than the sentencing guidelines of 135 to 168 months. Thus, he had already been treated leniently in light of his age, health and previously clean criminal record.
Nonetheless in his motion for compassionate release, Chang claimed that his age and health constituted “extraordinary and compelling reasons” to reduce his sentence to the time already served.
The Attorneys, however, claimed that Chang’s medical condition “does not justify release”. Chang argued that he should be released because he has stage 3 kidney disease, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and hyperlipidemia.
“These medical conditions”, the Attorneys replied, “do not meet the high bar for extraordinary and compelling reasons under the applicable policy statement or relevant case law.
In particular, Chang “has failed to show that he is “experiencing a serious deterioration in physical health because of the aging process”.
Chang, the Attorneys said, has medical conditions common among individuals around his age that can be managed while incarcerated.” There was nothing new about these conditions, which “existed when the defendant was sentenced”
They added that Chang “offers no facts or arguments that his health issues have seriously deteriorated and impacted his life or ability to function in prison any more than any other person with similar age-related issues”.
But the greatest obstacle to early release is the nature of Chang’s crimes. As Mozambican Finance Minister, he had used his authority to further a “brazen international fraud and money laundering scheme that caused one of the biggest debt and corruption scandals in Africa.”
Chang, the attorneys said, “played an integral role in the scheme, signing guarantees for over two billion dollars in loans—which put his country on the hook to pay back when he knew the loan proceeds would be corruptly diverted to himself and others—and helping to conceal the fraud and money laundering”.
In sentencing Chang, the attorneys said, the Court concluded that his “poor health and his otherwise clean criminal record… cannot excuse the harm inflicted on the victims in this case”
“The Court”, the attorneys said, “found that a significant sentence was warranted to deter the defendant from further engaging in criminal conduct and to discourage others from using their public position of influence to defraud others for private gain. All of these reasons remain true today.”
Chang’s defence team has no response to this argument. In his reply to the Justice Department attorneys, Chang argues that both he, and the US government want him deported to Mozambique.
Chang claims that the only point at issue is whether he should stay in the Connecticut prison for a further two months before his deportation date of 26 March. Early release, he claimed, “poses no risk whatsoever to the American public as he will be deported to Mozambique – more than 8,000 miles from this District – upon completion of his sentence”.
