Cardoso suspect escapes
2002-09-03 15:42
Maputo - The key suspect in the murder of Mozambique's leading
investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, has escaped from the
Maputo maximum security prison a few weeks before trial, police
said on Tuesday.
The circumstances of suspected assassin Anibal Antonio dos
Santos's escape are not yet known, general police command said in a statement.
Dos Santos, also known as Anibalzinho, escaped on Sunday,
leaving behind five of his suspected collaborators, police said.
Anibalzinho, who holds a Portuguese passport and a false
Mozambican one, was captured in neighbouring Swaziland in March
2001, about four months after Cardoso was killed on his way home
from work.
Cardoso had been investigating a major financial scandal
involving $14m that disappeared from the state bank
BCM before its privatisation in 1996.
Analysts and lawyers were baffled by the escape because a
special security cordon had been set up for Anibalzinho at the
country's top jail on the outskirts of the capital.
Lawyer and opposition parliamentarian Maximo Dias said he
lamented the escape, the second from the same prison involving a
suspected dangerous criminal in less than two months.
"The escapes show how much our prisons, the police and the
judiciary are vulnerable," Dias said.
Dias said it is likely that Anibalzinho was moved out of jail
"by those interested in keeping the secret for their own sake".
Analyst Inacio Chire described the escape as shocking and
senseless.
A lawyer for Cardoso's family, Lucinda Gomes, expressed
indignation, saying it only revealed serious gaps in the country's judiciary.
The Mozambican judiciary is one of the sectors worst affected by corruption, with scores of serious criminal cases ending in police and court files without prosecution. - Sapa-AFP
- SAPA