Africa-Press – Mozambique. Unknown assailants kidnapped Ahmed Anwar, owner of the Royal Hotel in central Maputo, at about 18.00 on Thursday, according to a report in Friday’s issue of the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”.
He was snatched from outside his house in the neighbourhood of Sommerschield II. The house lies between the official residences of the General Commander of the Mozambican police, Bernadino Rafael, and of the General Director of the State Information and Security Service (SISE), Bernardo Lidimba.
Hence the area is full of policemen and SISE agents, not to mention private security guards. According to “Carta de Mocambique”, in the days prior to Anwar’s kidnapping, eye-witnesses noted strangers in the vicinity. But it was assumed that these were members of the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR – the Mozambican riot police).
In February, Attorney-General Beatriz Buchili, delivering her annual report on the State of Justice to the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, said that some of those who should be on the front line combatting the kidnappers are in league with them. “The involvement of some members of the police, lawyers, magistrates and other figures in the judiciary creates fragilities in investigating these cases”, said Buchili, “and endangers the safety of those public servants who are committed to fighting against crime”.
At the opening session of a meeting of the Consultative Council of the Ministry of the Interior, President Filipe Nyusi himself declared “I cannot accept that police stations become nests of kidnappers, and the commander of the station has top responsibility on the matter. If he does not know the life of his staff, he should resign from his post.”
Following these strong statements, in early May the Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) announced the arrest of two police officers and a Sernic agent, suspected of working for kidnap gangs.
Police intelligence sources told “Carta de Mocambique” that both the kidnap gangs and the assassins referred to as “death squads” are now being controlled from within the UIR.
One suspect, Lenine Macamo, the head of reconnaissance in the Maputo branch of UIR, is a wanted man, and is currently on the run. He is accused of plotting the murder, inside the Maputo top security prison (known as the “BO”), of Momade Assife Abdul Satar, better known as Nini Satar.
Satar is serving a 24 year jail sentence for his role in the assassination, in November 2000, of Mozambique’s top investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso. But he is also suspected of involvement in the kidnappings of business people, and doubtless many of his colleagues in the world of organised crime would like to shut his mouth forever.
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