Maputo, 14 Dec (AIM) – Mozambique’s lawyers said on Wednesday, in their closing arguments in the trial of the “hidden debts” case, taking place at the Commercial Court in London, that the case was essentially “simple” – Mozambican public officials had been bribed by the Abu Dhabi based Privinvest shipping group.
Cited by the Portuguese news agency Lusa, lawyer Jonathan Adkin, who represents the Mozambican Attorney General’s Office, said “the case is simple”.
“Mr [Iskandar] Safa (founder of the company) and Prinvinvest offered and paid bribes to public officials and associates to obtain signed transactions and guarantees. As a result of these transactions and guarantees, the Republic [of Mozambique] suffered and continues to suffer enormous losses,” he told the court.
Mozambique accuses Privinvest and Safa, of bribing public officials, in particular the former Finance Minister Manuel Chang, to facilitate financing contracts for three fraudulent, security-linked state companies (Proindicus, EMATUM and MAM) for the purchase of such assets as fishing boats and maritime safety equipment.
Privinvest denies having committed any irregularities, claiming that the payments made to the people in question were investments, payments for services and contributions to political campaigns – which are all just thinly disguised terms for bribes.
Adkin invoked as evidence correspondence between Privinvest negotiator Jean Boustani and Teófilo Nhangumele, the alleged consultant who mediated the contacts with Bruno Langa, a friend of Ndambi Guebuza, the oldest son of former Mozambican President Armando Guebuza.
The three were sentenced in 2022 to 12 years in prison each, after a trial in Maputo for embezzlement, money laundering and receiving bribes to facilitate access to the former head of state.
The British lawyer also referred to the testimony of former Credit Suisse employees Andrew Pearse, Surjan Singh and Detelina Subeva in a US court case in 2019, in which all three admitting to receiving illicit payments from Privinvest, while they were negotiating the Credit Suisse loans to the three fake companies.
The Mozambican state estimates that it has suffered losses and liabilities totalling 2.1 billion dollars), according to documents submitted to the court. (This is a conservative estimate – an investigation by the anti-corruption NGO, the Centre for Public Integrity. CIP, put the true cost of the hidden debts, between 2016 and 2019, at 11 billion dollars).
In addition to compensation for these losses and liability for future payments relating to the refinancing of bonds, it also wants 992 million dollars, in case it loses the lawsuits filed by the Russian bank VTB and BCP of Portugal over missing payments.
The Russian and Portuguese banks want to be reimbursed for financing given in 2013 and 2014 to two of the fraudulent companies, MAM and EMATUM. But VTB, a bank close to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, is currently under sanctions from western countries, resulting from Putin’s aggression against Ukraine.
Mozambique argues that the alleged involvement of a VTB official, Makram Abboud, in corrupt payments invalidates the contracts and has, therefore, stopped reimbursing the loan.
In total, Mozambique is demanding 3.1 billion dollars from Privinvest and its owner.
Before the trial, the Mozambican government reached an out-of-court settlement with the UBS group, which owns Credit Suisse, resulting in the forgiveness of around 450 million dollars to Mozambique.
According to documents revealed by Mozambique’s legal defence, the same agreement involved the payment of 142.8 million dollars to other financial institutions involved in the Proindicus contract.
Meanwhile, Credit Suisse, Privinvest and Safa also announced that they had found “a global solution to all present and future disputes between them”, allowing the Swiss bank and its former employees to drop the case.
Mozambique’s former National Treasury Director, Isaltina Lucas, who was also part of the case, also reached an agreement with Mozambique and Credit Suisse and she is no longer potentially liable for any compensation.
Closing arguments in the case will continue until 21 December, but the Judge Robin Knowles is expected to take several months before announcing his decision
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