Depressão tropical Jude
Maputo, 13 Mar (AIM) – Former Mozambican presidential Venancio Mondlane has again accused the ruling Frelimo Party of attempting to assassinate him.
Interviewed by CIPCAST, the podcast of the anti-corruption organisation, the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), Mondlane claimed there have been fve failed attempts on his life.
The most recent was on 5 March when members of the Rapid Intervention Unit (UIR – the Mozambican riot police) opened fire on his motorcade in the Maputo neighbourhood of Xiquelene.
The polic claim that they were merely trying to disperse a large crowd of Mondlane supporters. But Mondlane is convinced he was the target.
“Frelimo is very interested in getting rid of me”, he claimed. “Right now, Frelimo doesn’t even dare hold a parade, because nobody would attend”.
Mondlane said he came close to death on 5 March. “They were real bullets, murderous bullets”, he stressed. “My cameraman was hit, and he was just ten metres behind me. The proximity of the police, armed with weapons of war, AK-47s, show that I was the target”.
He declared that since October the police have shot dead more than 400 of his supporters, as a result of “Political intolerance and anti-democratic and dictatorial practices”, supposedly imposed by Frelimo.
Mondlane said he had no doubt that the interrogation to which he was submitted on Tuesday at the Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) was part of a strategy of intimidation. The prosecutor who questioned him, he added, did not even say what crime he is accused of. No charges have been pressed so far, and Mondlane walked out of the PGR a free man.
He said that the police detained his treasurer, Gloria Nobre, on Tuesday, and that, even as Mondlane was being questioned, his spokesperson, Denis Tivane, was told that the Central Office for the Fight against Organised Crime (GCCOT) had opened a case against him. Tivane has been summoned to appear before the GCCOT on Friday.
(AIM)
Pf/ (328)
