Maputo, 9 Apr (AIM) – The Lichinga City Law Court, in the northern Mozambican province of Niassa, has sentenced Friday Taibo, the former provincial delegate of the national relief agency, the Disaster Management Institute (INGD), to eight years imprisonment for the theft of food and other relief goods intended for the victims of Cyclone Freddy, which hit Mozambique in March 2023.
The court also sentenced Angelo Junior, owner of the house where the stolen goods were stored, to seven years, and Fausto Jafar, driver of the truck the thieves used, to six years.
The case goes back to April 2023, when the police caught Taibo red-handed unloading goods valued at 738,000 meticais (about 11,500 US dollars at the current exchange rate) at a house in Lichinga. The thieves intended to sell the goods in neighbouring Malawi.
According to the report of the trial in Tuesday’s issue of the independent daily “O Pais”, the presiding judge in the Lichinga court, Januario Paticene, said the crime had serious consequences, since the cyclone had affected about 16,000 people in Niassa.
The accused, said Paticene, “had acted in a cold and calculated manner, and showed no signs of remorse during the trial. They did not confess to the crime, and they made it difficult to uncover the truth”.
They also “showed their intention to obstruct the investigations, in an attempt to cover up the crime”.
“As if this were not enough”, Paticene added, “they made use of the provisional freedom granted to them to falsify evidence in order to distract the court”.
In addition to the prison terms, the court sentenced the three to pay the Mozambican state 738,100 meticais in damages.
The prosecutor, Danilo Tiago, expressed satisfaction at the court’s decision, but the defence lawyers declined to make any comment.
(AIM)
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