The former President of Angola landed in Dubai on the 21st to visit Isabel dos Santos, whom he had not yet seen since the death of his son-in-law on 29 October. Manuel Vicente arrived the same day.
It was the first time that José Eduardo dos Santos left Barcelona in 2019: he traveled to Dubai where he has been since last Monday, to spend Christmas with his daughter Isabel dos Santos. After missing the funeral, in London, of son-in-law Sindika Dokolo, who died on October 29, the former President of Angola decided to be with his daughter at Christmas, reported several Angolan media and confirmed the Observer together from sources close to the José Eduardo dos Santos circle and the Angolan presidency.
According to a note from the Angolan embassy in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, cited by the Angolan press, the former President arrived in the “early hours of December 21, on Emirates Airlines flight EK 186” having “stayed at the Andrews Fountain Views Hotel ”. Not only was Isabel dos Santos waiting for her at the airport, but Ambassador Albino Malungo, who made sure to provide all the technical and protocol assistance to the support group for the ex-President, “as requested by the President’s Ceremonial”. The diplomatic mission even retained some embassy officials in Dubai due to “restrictions on movement between Abu Dhabi and Dubai”.
Curious is the reference, in the same note, to the fact that the ambassador witnessed, on that day, “at Terminal 3 of the airport, the arrival of ex-vice president, Manuel Vicente” who disembarked from “flight EK 794, coming from Luanda ”.
Everything will have been “a coincidence”, the source linked to the circle of the ex-President assures the Observer. Especially because the relationship between the two, which was no longer the best in the last years of José Eduardo dos Santos’ term, suffered another severe blow last week. According to Expresso, Manuel Vicente will have delivered documents directly to João Lourenço that directly implicate his old friend in the corruption business at Sonangol.
This could mean another step in the encirclement that Angolan justice has made to the Dos Santos family in the fight against corruption and which was accentuated a year ago when the assets of Isabel dos Santos were arrested and José Eduardo dos Santos referenced in a procedural document as favored the daughter illegitimately. After the Luanda Leaks scandal of 19 January this year, who was once considered the richest woman in Africa, she was even accused of alleged mismanagement and embezzlement during her time at Sonangol, and in August, the eldest son, Filomeno dos Santos, sentenced to 5 years in prison.
