Africa-Press – Mozambique. A Mozambican businessman who, in 2011, became the first known kidnap victim in the country, was kidnapped at gunpoint this Saturday in Maputo, by a group of armed men who fired several shots in the middle of the street, according to several sources.
The occurrence of this kidnapping has already been confirmed to Lusa by an official source from the Police of the Republic of Mozambique in the city of Maputo, which reserves other information for later. However, publicly released videos surveillance footage show the moment the businessman was kidnapped as he left a building and about to get into a vehicle, ata round 7:30 a.m..
In the same footage it is possible to see that the group was armed and fired several shots in the face of opposition from security guards and the presence of people near the scene, on Ho Chi Min Avenue, in the centre of Maputo city.
The victim, who was dragged into the kidnappers’ vehicle, is one of the owners of Armazéns Atlântico: He escaped from captivity after being kidnapped in June 2011, the first known case of its kind in Mozambique, other sources indicated.
”O País online’ reports that Mohammad Calu is now 70years old and notes that a member “of the group of alleged kidnappers” was wearing a traditional Islamic attire.
At the crime scene,’O País’ continues, the marks of the crime were still visible, with bullets scattered across the ground, blood on the kidnapped businessman’s vehicle and still in front of the obstacle where the kidnappers placed themselves.
In an attempt to help his boss, two of the businessman’s security guards were shot, ‘O País’ reports..
According to the same source, the Police of the Republic of Mozambique a(PRM) and the National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) arrived at the scene of the crime almost an hour later, isolated the area, collected traces of the crime and interviewed witnesses.
One of the people interviewed by SERNIC is reportedly a member of the businessman’s security team, who was present at the time of the kidnapping and who was prohibited from making any type of statement to the press.
Minutes later, this witness was taken away in the Criminal Investigation Service vehicle, O País reports.
Last Tuesday, a store manager was injured in the abdomen during a failed kidnapping attempt by members of the public who threw stones at the perpetrators, the police spokesman in Maputo, Leonel Muchina, told Lusa.
“Unfortunately, the victim was hit in the abdomen, but is out of danger and safe, following an action by members of the public,” said Muchina.
During the incident, a man suffered a graze wound to the back, but it was not serious, Muchina added.
The PRM spokesperson said that the store manager was leaving a mosque and heading to his place of work, on Avenida Filipe Samuel Magaia, when three men armed with an AKM tried to take the victim by force into the vehicle. in which they were transported, but the action was made impossible by members of the public, who threw stones and other objects, breaking the vehicle’s windows.
The three men fled, but shot the victim in the abdomen and slightly injured another person, said Leonel Muchina.
The Confederation of Economic Associations (CTA), the largest employers’ association in the country, at the beginning of November, in the face of this new wave of cases, called for “more severe” prison sentences against kidnappers and without the possibility of paying bail to stop these crimes..
A petition launched about a month ago, addressed to the governments of Mozambique and Portugal, calls for measures to rescue captive citizens, calling on both governments to “not let these victims fall into oblivion”, having already gathered more than half a thousand subscribers.
Meanwhile, n the early hours of December 18th, the Mozambican police arrested three people i involved in the kidnapping of a 26-year-old Portuguese-Mozambican woman, who had been held captive for 50 days. The victim was kidnapped at the door of her house, in the centre of Maputo, on November 1st, by three armed men, with the Portuguese Ministry of Foreign Affairs having previously confirmed that it was monitoring this case and another one, also involving anotherPMozambican-Portuguese citizen, target of an attempted kidnapping only a a few days later and also in the country’s capital,.
In November, Mozambique’s Central Office for Combating Organized and Transnational Crime (GCCOT) brought charges against three defendants allegedly involved in the kidnapping and death of a 57-year-old man in December 2022. One of the defendants is a former member of the National Service of Criminal Investigation (Sernic) and another is an employee of a provincial department of Justice, who had been sentenced to 23 years in prison for involvement in other crimes, including kidnapping, but was acquitted in the second instance, the GCCOT said in a statement.
Some Mozambican cities, mainly the provincial capitals, have been affected again since 2020 by a wave of kidnappings, mainly targeting businesspeople or their families.
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