Africa-Press – Mozambique. The trial in the murder of then Nampula mayor Mahamudo Amurane, which should have started yesterday, has been postponed to 27 April because of lack of compliance with some procedural formalities.
The sixth criminal section of the Judicial Court of Nampula Province had scheduled for this Wednesday the beginning of the trial of the two co-defendants in the case of the murder of the then mayor of Nampula, Mahamudo Amurane, on October 4, 2017.
The judge in the case made it to the courtroom shortly after 9:00 a.m., but defence lawyers promptly raised as a prior point the fact that one of the co-defendants had not been notified about the trial within the period of 10 days prior to trial established by law, and that the other defendant had not been notified of the ruling of the Superior Court of Appeal of Nampula, which, in April 2021, ordered that the case be put down for trial, in response to the appeal that had been filed by the Public Prosecutor against a ruling by the sixth section ordering that the trial be postponed pending the production of a better evidence.
Having no alternative, the judge rescheduled the trial for the 27th of April.
“The decision of the Superior Court of Appeal, which annulled the order of non-pronouncement to our clients, was not timely notified to the defence and, therefore, there was this obligation of notification so that we could, also in a timely manner, exercise our right of contradictory contesting some aspects,” defence lawyer Carlos Coelho said.
Mahamudo Amurane was shot dead at his home on the outskirts of Nampula as he was saying goodbye to two people with whom he had had a private meeting. These two persons, Saíde Aly Abdurremane, at the time of the facts a councillor in the Municipal Council, and Zainal Adbul Satar, a businessman in the area of civil construction, have been indicted in the murder case by the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
By
Ricardo Machava
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