Africa-Press – Mozambique. Judge Efigenio Baptista, of the Maputo City Court, on Friday accepted a request from Marcia Namburete, the wife of businessman Sergio Namburete, one of the 19 accused in the case of Mozambique’s “hidden debts”, that she be removed from the list of witnesses.
Marcia Namburete was one of the 20 people originally charged with such crimes as criminal conspiracy, embezzlement and money-laundering, arising the creation of three fraudulent companies linked to the security services, Proindicus. Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management).
The fraud involved the Abu Dhabi based group Privinvest and senior figures in the security and intelligence service, SISE. Privinvest spent hundreds of millions of dollars on bribes and kickbacks, money skimmed off the two billion dollars in loans which the three companies obtained from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB, on the basis of illegal loan guarantees issued by the government of the day, under former President Armando Guebuza.
Sergio Namburete set up the company SEN-Consulting and Investments in 2014, which, according to the prosecution, signed a contract with Privinvest to receive 8775000 euros (about 990,000 dollars, at today’s exchange rate). This was an illicit payment to Ines Moiane, President Guebuza’s former secretary.
From that transaction, Sergio Namburete allegedly received a large “thank you” in the shape of 127,500 euros, and then transferred 50,000 euros to his wife.
In June 2020, the Maputo Higher Court of Appeals decided there was insufficient evidence against Marcia Namburete. According to a press release issued by the court at the time, the charges against her were withdrawn “because there were doubts about her participation in the crimes”.
But the Appeals Court maintained the charges against her husband.
When he testified in the current trial, on 6 September, Namburete said he and Moiane had been friends for more than a decade, when Moiane came round to his house and asked him to assist in arrangements for “an investor from Abu Dhabi”. That investor turned out to be senior Privinvest official Jean Boustani. Namburete said he had never met Boustani in person, but gave him the details of his company and its bank account over the phone.
Boustani sent 877,500 euros, at current exchange rates) to the SEN account: of this sum, 750,000 euros was the bribe paid to Moiane, which Namburete passed on to her. He kept the remaining 127,500 euros, and said he spent much of the money on medical treatment for his wife in South Africa.
Mozambican law states that wives cannot be obliged to give evidence in cases involving their husbands (or vice versa). So Baptista asked Marcia Namburete if she was willing to give evidence, she said she was not and that was the end of her brief court appearance.
She had also been issued with a summons concerned the hidden debts civil case, in which the state is seeking damages of 2.9 billion dollars from the accused. Baptista said this was a mistake, since such damages can only be demanded from people found guilty of crimes. Since the charges against Marcia Namburete have been dropped, the question of her guilt no longer arises.
Two other witnesses should have been heard on Friday, but their testimony involves the alleged payment of Privinvest bribes to Angela Leao, the wife of Gregorio Leao, the General Director of SISE under Guebuza.
Baptista thought it important that Angela Leao should be in court to hear their testimony, but she has not been attending recent trial sessions due to illness. It is believed that she will be well enough to attend on Monday, and so the two witnesses will be questioned then.
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