Maputo, 29 Apr (AIM) – Mozambique’s Attorney-General, Americo Letela, on Tuesday suggested that, in the fight against kidnapping, the authorities should freeze the assets of kidnap victims and their families, to prevent them from paying ransoms to the kidnap gangs.
Giving his annual report on the state of the justice system to the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, Letela noted that the wave of kidnappings had spread a feeling of insecurity among business people and their families, and this crime required the adoption of “exceptional measures”.
Despite some successes last year, the prevalence of kidnapping “shows that additional efforts should be undertaken by the State, with the collaboration of society in denouncing situations that that indicate the preparation or other kind of involvement in this type of crime”.
Letela thought it opportune to adopt measures “seeking to freeze the funds and goods of the victims, their companies and their close relatives in order to prevent the payment of ransoms”. He thought this would discourage kidnapping and claimed that other countries had adopted such measures.
Letela announced that last year the authorities opened 32 criminal proceedings against people involved in kidnapping – a reduction of almost 47 per cent when compared with the 60 cases recorded in 2023.
“Despite these efforts, the difficulty of identifying and neutralizing the masterminds of these crimes persists. On the one hand, due to the highly sophisticated and complex way in which the networks operate, and on the other, due to the fact that some of them operate from outside the country”, he said.
Letela also pointed to the infiltration of organised crime into the bodies charged with the administration of justice, which “undermines the efforts made in the fight against organised the arrets of the offenders”.
He admitted that in some cases police officers are involved in planning and carrying out kidnappings, while some magistrates “motivated by schemes of corruption guarantee the criminals impunity”.
He recalled that, on 3 March, two police officers were among the gang of seven kidnappers who abducted the manager of a shop in the southern city of Chokwe. They demanded a ransom of six million meticais (about 94,000 US dollars), and when no money was forthcoming, they killed their victim and buried him in a shallow grave.
Scandals of this sort, said Letela, pointed to the need for more careful selection and recruitment of police officers and greater control over their activities “through strengthening inspections, promoting integrity and values compatible with the standards of professional ethics”.
Since the first case of kidnapping was reported 12 years ago, 100 business people, most of them of Asian origin, have left the country for fear of being abducted. According to the Strategic Analysis Report (RAE), published by the Mozambican Financial Intelligence Office (GIFiM), the wave of kidnappings has generated, since 2014, over 33 million dollars in money laundering.
(AIM)
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