Ministro moçambicano do Interior, Pascoal Ronda
Maputo, 20 Mar (AIM) – The Mozambican Minister of the Interior, Pascoal Ronda, has claimed that the wave of kidnappings since 2011 suggests the existence of strong link between legal and illegal businesses in the same industry.
According to the Minister, who was speaking to reporters on Tuesday at the end of a meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), in Maputo, the authorities are currently studying the details behind the kidnappings, including the perpetrators, especially in Maputo, Matola, Beira, and Nampula.
“We are in a business world, there are illegal businesses, there are legal businesses”, said Ronda. “We are studying, based on criminal intelligence, why some people are kidnapped and not others”.
Ronda believes that, within the next few days, the authorities will be able to present the masterminds behind the kidnappings.
“The kidnappers, now being held by the Mozambican police (PRM), have confessed, under interrogation, to the participation of foreigners commanding the kidnappings, and have revealed the places where they met with these masterminds”.
Ronda said the PRM is working on a thorough investigation to find the masterminds behind the kidnappings.
“These individuals are not sitting still; they are following all the information, including this press conference that we are holding, so they are always worried about hiding. But they will be arrested, because there is no such thing as a perfect crime”, he said.
Ronda claimed that 42 members of kidnap gangs have been arrested recently – three of them South Africans and the rest Mozambicans.
The PRM also seized four pistols, four vehicles, 26 rounds of ammunition, and six mobile phones.
Since the start of the wave of kidnappings, in 2011, he said, 185 people had been kidnapped, and 268 suspects had been arrested. He did not say how many of these suspects have been convicted, and are currently serving jail sentences, nor how much ransom money was extorted from the families of their victims.
(AIM)
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