Maputo, 26 Jul (AIM) – The Mozambican police on Tuesday rescued a businessman held captive by a gang of kidnappers in the neighbourhood of Malhampsene, in the southern city of Matola.
According to a report on the independent television station STV, the kidnappers resisted the police raid. In the ensuing shootout, two of the kidnappers were injured and taken to hospital, and a third was detained.
Their victim (whose name was not released) was abducted in Maputo last Thursday. He is in good health, and has been returned to his family.
One of those arrested is a 42 year old man who holds a degree in rural engineering from Maputo’s Eduardo Mondlane University. He told STV that he was living in Chicumbane, in Gaza province, when he received a phone call from a friend in South Africa, who was proposing “a job” for him.
It turned out that this “job” was to guard the kidnap victim in the Malhampsene house. He claimed that, without even knowing what the job entailed, he went to Maputo at his friend’s request. He was told that, for his participation in the abduction, he would be paid 100,000 rands (about 5,700 US dollars, at the current exchange rate).
“When I arrived, a woman took me here (to Malhampsene)”, he said, “and then they brought a man, an Indian, and said that I had to stay with this man. They wanted to negotiate with him, they wanted some money, but I don’t know how much. We weren’t armed, but there was a gun inside which they had left. They told us not to use it”.
After the kidnapping, the leader of the gang, who was described as a Mozambican citizen living in South Africa, returned to South Africa, and from there he gave instructions.
There were three calls from South Africa every day, and the kidnappers began to collect a ransom from their victim’s family. It is not yet known how much ransom money the kidnappers demanded, or how much the family paid.
The detained kidnapper claimed he did not know who ordered the abduction of the businessmen. “I only know he told me that it’s Tony, and he’s in South Africa. I don’t know how I got involved in this, I don’t know if it was because of greed, or for easy money, I don’t know”.
He claimed that in the Malhampsene house “we sat with the person (the victim), we cooked and we gave him food. We didn’t do anything else. We didn’t mistreat him”.
Before the kidnapping, the gang went to Malhampsene, where they rented a house, paying 45,000 meticais for three months rent.
They signed the rent contract with a woman named Meriana Americo, who claimed she had no idea who her new tenants were, or that they were about to convert the house into a prison.
“I didn’t know who these men are”, Americo told the police and reporters. “I am frightened by what happened”.
Somebody blew the whistle on the kidnap gang, for the Criminal Investigation Service (Sernic) said it received a tip off about the house. The Maputo provincial Sernic spokesperson, Henrique Mendes, said that, after confirming that the house was indeed being used to house a kidnap victim, “we went into action. We detained three individuals. The criminals resisted, but we were successful. The victim was rescued alive, and apparently in good health, and right now he’s with his family”.
(AIM)
Pf/ (578)