Manuel Chang was arrested on December 29, 2018, at Johannesburg airport, en route to Dubai, for his alleged involvement in the multimillion-dollar “cabal” in Mozambique.
At the end of this month, it will be two years since former Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang has been imprisoned, without trial, in South Africa awaiting extradition for alleged involvement in hidden debts of more than 2 billion euros.
At 63, Manuel Chang was arrested on 29 December 2018 at OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg en route to Dubai, based on an international arrest warrant issued by the United States on 27 December, for his alleged involvement in the “cabal” ”Multimillionaire in the neighboring Portuguese-speaking country.
Chang was Mozambique’s finance minister during Armando Guebuza’s government between 2005 and 2010 and endorsed $ 2,200 million in debts secretly incurred in favor of Ematum, Proindicus, and MAM, the public companies referred to in the US indictment, allegedly created for that purpose in the maritime security and fisheries sectors, between 2013 and 2014.
Loan mobilization was organized by Credit Suisse and VTB banks in Russia.
“This case has a significant impact on the finances of companies, banks, public institutions, and societies”, stressed South African judge Sagra Subroyen, on February 15, 2019, when rejecting the request for parole while reading a long sentence, in which he made the radiograph of “an elaborate cabal”, considering that the defendant proved to be a “conservative, pedantic and suspicious” individual during the negotiation of his bond request, despite the apparent “life of luxury he refused to justify”.
The judge stated that the defendant is accused by the United States of having received $ 12 million in bribes – seven million for the “success” of loans to public companies, and 5 million through two shell companies in Spain, and that “no managed to prove the reason for such financial transactions ”, not even recalling the details of the visits to Portugal, where he was two months before being arrested in South Africa.
Washington and Maputo requested the extradition of the former Mozambican ruler from the South African authorities, with the arrest of the leader of the Mozambique Liberation Front (Frelimo), the ruling party in Mozambique since 1975, triggered other arrests, including the son of former President Guebuza.
“The case is unprecedented [in South Africa], even from the point of view of human rights in a rule of law, two years is problematic because the man has not been tried and is in detention simply awaiting the final decision for his extradition” , underlined the South African jurist André Thomashausen to Lusa.
Since January 2019, when Maputo began asking Pretoria for Chang’s extradition to “testify as a witness”, Mozambican authorities have repeatedly presented new arguments and changed the circumstances of the case, so this year Manuel Chang became accused in a criminal case, 16 months after the original request for his extradition.
“It is curious that it took all this time to understand that the Extradition Law always requires that a person be constituted an accused. There is no extradition of witnesses, ”said the lawyer.
Manuel Chang’s lawyer, South African Rudi Krause, on the other hand, defended Lusa that two years later “the legal position has not changed at all”, stressing that the extradition of the former ruler should have been “immediate”.
On the last day in the Government, former South African justice minister Michael Masutha, appointed by former President Jacob Zuma, decided to repatriate Manuel Chang on May 21, 2019, “to go to trial in Mozambique”, but the decision was immediately repealed by his successor Ronald Lamola, appointed by President Ramaphosa.
Before the beginning of the confinement of the covid-19 pandemic in March of this year, the United States again accused Mozambique of intending with the extradition of Chang to protect Guebuza and senior Frelimo cadres, suspected of having received US $ 150 million [138, 1 million euros] in “gloves”, “including 10 million dollars for the party, and 60 million dollars for Armando Guebuza (ex-President) and his son”.
According to Thomausen, “there are new interests at stake” that hinder the outcome of the case, since “behind the solidarity between the ANC and Frelimo, there are very serious corrupt economic interests because a large part of the hidden debts was later channeled through of South Africa ”.
“I very much doubt that Manuel Chang will be able to keep his silence because he must also be tired of being the person who has all the blame, he has been in prison for two years, just to safeguard the interests of his comrades,” he said.
At issue, says the same source, is now the alleged “privatization” of the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) and the Armed and Defense Forces of Mozambique (FADM), as part of a large-scale “militarization” in the province of Cabo Delgado, against the alleged “jihadist terrorism” in northern Mozambique, which divides the member states of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) and the African Union (AU), currently chaired by President Ramaphosa, regarding a possible intervention in conflict resolution.
“It could even be said that it opens a new episode of hidden debts, because this militarization of Cabo Delgado, is now producing massive orders for equipment here in South Africa, in favor of a private arms company, which is very well known and has intrinsic links with the ANC, since 1994 it has financed all kinds of personal expenses from ruling party ministers and leaders, it is evidently in the process of receiving, or has already received, an order of around US $ 100 million, ”he said.
