Africa-Press – Mozambique. The ruling Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) called for exemplary measures against police officers who allegedly shot dead a child and condemned the lynching of one of the officers involved, considering that the two deaths could have been avoided.
“We call on the authorities to take exemplary measures so that these acts, this type of action by our police, is not repeated, because the use of firearms is at an extreme moment and there must be grounds,” said Frelimo’s secretary-general, Chakil Aboobakar, quoted by the media today.
People lynched a Mozambican police officer on Monday after a child was shot dead during a chase in Maputo province, southern Mozambique, causing social unrest, with burnt-out vehicles and the blocking of National Road 1, the country’s main road, the General Command of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) announced in a statement.
Speaking to journalists, the secretary-general of Frelimo said that the car chased by the police authorities did not jeopardise the security of the Mozambican state, stating that “less excessive measures” should have been taken.
In the same speech, Aboobakar condemned the popular lynching of one of the police officers involved in the chase.
“I think there was an excess of zeal on the part of the police, which is why we condemn and sympathise with the family of the minor who lost his life, but we also advise against, discourage and condemn the actions of the population for having reacted to the same extent, and these two deaths could have been avoided,” he said.
At issue are four police officers who allegedly shot dead a 12-year-old child in Maputo province during a pursuit, using a private car, of the vehicle in which the child was travelling with his parents to Manica province, in the centre of Mozambique.
The Mozambican police said on the same day that disciplinary proceedings had been launched against the officers “with a view to their expulsion”. At the same time, other steps were being taken to hold the policemen criminally responsible.
The General Command of the PRM lamented the deaths of the child and the police officer, while calling on Mozambican society not to take the law into its own hands, regardless of the circumstances.
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