Kidnapped Businessman Found Dead In Matola

Kidnapped Businessman Found Dead In Matola

Maputo, 27 Dec (AIM) – The lifeless body of a kidnapped businessman, Hayyum Ali Mamade, was found on Monday night, in the southern Mozambican city of Matola.

According to a report in Tuesday’s issue of the independent newssheet, “Carta de Mocambique”, the kidnappers telephoned Mamade’s family, saying that he was ill, and they should collect him. The family went to the place indicated by the kidnappers and found Mamade stretched out on the ground. They rushed him to hospital, where doctors confirmed that he was already dead.

Mamade was the owner of the “Vanilla Gelado Italiano” ice cream parlour in Matola, a Matola shopping centre, and a group of shops of the brand “Kids r Us”. Recently he opened a second ice cream parlour in Matola, which is where he was kidnapped, by armed assailants, on 14 December.

Eye witnesses said the kidnapping took no more than 30 seconds. His children had been the victims of an earlier attempted kidnapping.

Kidnapping has become a lucrative business. Prakash Prehlad, deputy chairperson of the Confederation of Mozambican Business Associations (CTA), speaking on 7 December, at a Maputo workshop on Money Laundering and the Financing of Terrorism, estimated that the money collected in ransoms by kidnap gangs in the first 11 months of this year was 35 million dollars.

The kidnappings have been occurring in Mozambican cities (particularly Maputo, Matola and Beira) since 2011, mostly targeting business people of Asian origin and their families. This is the first time a kidnap victim has died in the hands of his captors.

This year, according to Interior Minister Arsenia Massingue, addressing the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, there have been 11 kidnappings and 27 people have been arrested in connection with these crimes.

Last May, Attorney-General Beatriz Buchili declared that some police officers, magistrates and lawyers are suspected of involvement in the kidnappings. She said that some victims are “constantly blackmailed”, even after the kidnappers have set them free. The kidnappers continue to demand money – otherwise the victims will be abducted again.

In February, Buchili said the Public Prosecutor’s Office has charged officers of the police and of the National Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) of a range of serious crimes, including kidnapping, drug trafficking, forgery and money laundering. These officers have been in preventive detention since April 2021, but the case has yet to come to trial.
(AIM)
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