Maputo, 3 Aug (AIM) – Clara Martinez Thedy De Safa, widow of the shipbuilding magnate Iskandar Safa, has urged an appeal to overturn a ruling allowing Mozambique to add her to its bribery case after the country secured a 1.9 billion US dollars damages award, arguing that any claim against her belongs in Lebanon.
The late Privinvest founder Iskandar Safa died in 2024. In the judgment delivered in July 2024 by the Commercial Court in London, Judge Knowles ordered the naval group to pay approximately 1.9 billion dollars in damages.
Safa and Privinvest were found guilty last year of bribing Mozambique’s then Minister of Finance, Manuel Chang.
The so called “hidden debts” case relates to loans of over two billion US dollars made by the banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia in 2013 and 2014 to three fraudulent Mozambican companies (Proindicus, Ematum, and MAM) which were all effectively run by the security service, SISE.
According to the American legal news service “Law 360”, Iskandar Safa’s widow told the Court of Appeal that Mozambique’s attempt to hold her liable as her husband’s heir should be decided by the Lebanese courts, rather than the English courts.
Robert Howe KC of Blackstone Chambers, representing Clara, said that his client is not seeking to evade liability, but added that there was “no suggestion” she had any knowledge of or involvement in the wrongdoing found against her late husband.
“She’s not a British citizen, she does not live here and she has no substantial connection with this jurisdiction,” Howe said, arguing that Mozambique could not join Clara to the proceedings unless it satisfied the ordinary rules governing service on foreign defendants.
Mozambique’s Attorney General’s Office (PGR) had requested authorization to include the widow, Clara Martinez Thedy de Safa, and the sons, Akram Safa and Alejandro Safa, as defendants to continue the process. Her inclusion, the PGR said, was aimed at allowing English courts to complete their determination of Iskandar’s liability, rather than forcing Mozambique to litigate the same issues again in Lebanon.
The PGR also says that the English courts are the appropriate forum because they have managed the litigation for years and are best placed to bring the proceedings to a conclusion, even if some issues of Lebanese law arise.
Mozambique sued shipbuilder Privinvest and Iskandar, its owner, for 3.1 billion dollars, alleging at the High Court that the company paid more than 136 million dollars in bribes to Mozambique government officials and Credit Suisse bankers. The bribes tied the country into a financing package for lucrative infrastructure and fishing contracts, the tuna bonds.
Am/
