Africa-Press – Mozambique. The Superior Council of Judicial Magistrates (CSMJ), in its recent first ordinary session, decided to expel Noé Ama José Zimpinga, Judge of Law C of the 2nd Section (Criminal) of the Judicial Court of the district of Nacala.
Noé Zimpinga was the judge in the famous ‘pigeons peas’ case in the city of Nacala, which involved the companies ETG, Lda. and Royal Group. The case involved a complaint that led to the exclusion of large quantities of this product from the Indian market, at a cost of billions in losses to one of the parties.
“In December 2023, while replacing Samuel Horácio Pita, criminal investigating judge at the Nacala district court, Zimpinga issued ruling no. 949/0317/P/22, ordering the seizure of assets, agricultural products belonging to the group company ETG, Lda., stored in the cities of Nacala and Beira, on the grounds that Venkateshwaran Narayanan and Naulikumar Virendrabai Patel, employees of the company, had not paid economic and prison bail in the respective amounts of 3 billion, 871 million and 800 thousand meticais,” the CSMJ decision relates.
The CSMJ also understood, in order to make the expulsion decision, that the seizure ordered by Zimpinga of 4,300 tons of various products, harming ETG, Lda., had no legal grounds.
Another oddity that the CSMJ found has to do with the fact that the “defendant continued with the seizure, which began on 22/12/2023 and concluded on 24 January 2024, and authorized the full sale of the seized cargo, despite the Public Prosecutor’s Office having ordered the archiving of case no. 949/0317/P/2023”.
According to the CSMJ’s decision, in the seizure process, Zimpinga carried out the procedures at a speed never seen before in the Mozambican justice system.
Another person who stood out in the first session of the CSMJ was Serguei Costa, a judge of Law C, of the Judicial Court of the city of Nampula.
Two cases were filed against him and he was sentenced to dismissal, after part of the facts of which he was accused were proven.
“In the first case, no. 46/2024, it was partially proven that the judge dismissed an appeal and, consequently, ordered the arrest of a citizen without legal grounds. Also in this case, Serguei Costa violated his duty to perform his duties seriously,” it reads.
In the other case, no. 50/2024, Serguei Costa sentenced a 12-year-old girl to an effective prison sentence, claiming that he was unaware of her age.
The CSMJ considers that “the conduct of the defendant Serguei Costa in sentencing a 12-year-old girl to an effective prison sentence, without even bothering to verify the identities of the defendants in the proceedings in question, is extremely serious”, so much so that the defendant “violated his professional duties to perform his duties seriously, impartially and with dignity”.
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