Maputo — As a major corruption trial resumed in Maputo on Monday, another witness confirmed that in 2007 the then chairperson of the Mozambican Airports Company (ADM), Diodino Cambaza, had paid 20,000 dollars to purchase a property in Marracuene district, about 30 kilometres north of Maputo.
Luisa Mucovelo, wife of Joseldo Massango, the man who was selling the property, confirmed to the court that she and her husband had jointly signed the declaration that they had received the money from Cambaza.
Massango had earlier testified that, although he had only wanted 20,000 dollars, Cambaza paid him with a cheque for 25,000. When he cashed the cheque, he gave the extra 5,000 dollars to Cambaza who pocketed it.
The money came from ADM, via its subsidiary, the catering company SMS (Mozambique Services Company), and Cambaza had claimed that the money was to pay for unspecified expenses of the ruling Frelimo Party.
During the investigations, Cambaza had denied any knowledge of Joseldo Massango, and claimed that before his arrest he had never met him.
But Mucovelo told the court that Cambaza had repeatedly sent messengers to her, trying to persuade her to change her story. They wanted her to sign a document saying that she had sold the Marracuene property for 500,000 meticais (about 18,300 dollars).
This would have suppressed the fact that in fact Cambaza had paid for it with 25,000 dollars which his colleagues at ADM and SMS believed had gone to Frelimo. Cambaza's envoys, according to Mucovelo, offered her a bribe of 50,000 meticais which she rejected.
The final envoy from Cambaza was his lawyer, Vasconcelos Porto, accompanied by the head of the ADM legal department, Salvador Taimo. They went to see Mucovele last Thursday.
"He (Vasconcelos) said he wanted to talk with me about his client (Cambaza), but when he discovered that I was the wife of Massango, he didn't say anything else", said Mucovele.
This peculiar incident, which might easily be interpreted as an attempt to intimidate a witness, infuriated the presiding judge, Dimas Marroa. For it is a gross violation of legal ethics for a lawyer representing an accused, in the middle of a trial, to take one witness round to the house of another witness, without so much as informing the court.
During Monday's proceedings, it also emerged that Vasconcelos and Taimo had been to visit the Marracuene property purchased by Cambaza, again without the knowledge of the court.
"The trial had already begun - so with what mandate did you go to the land in Marracuene and to the house of Massango's wife?", Marroa asked Taimo.
Taimo could only respond "I didn't ask Vasconcelos that question".
Since both Vasconcelos and Taimo have law degrees, they should know very well that the only investigations that can be undertaken while a trial is in process are those authorised by the court.
The excuse offered by Vasconcelos was that he had gone to the house in search of another witness. He claimed the court had asked him to locate some of the witnesses he wished to call.
Marroa categorically denied this. "I didn't ask you to intervene", he told Vasconcelos. "In the dispatch I issued there's no request of that sort".
On Monday the court also took evidence from Martins Matola, the secretary of the ADM trade union committee. When a group of workers denounced Cambaza to the anti-corruption office, Matola led a counter-offensive in defence of Cambaza.
He traveled across the country and collected 281 signatures of ADM workers to a petition praising Cambaza for his efforts to improve workers' conditions. The petition was sent to President Armando Guebuza, Prime Minister Luisa Diogo, Attorney-General Augusto Paulino, and other authorities.
Matola told the court that the group who denounced Cambaza "had no legitimacy to speak in the name of all ADM workers".
Marroa asked him if he had ever heard of the fight against corruption. Matola replied that he thought any problem in the company should be debated between the workers, via their trade union committee, and the management. He seemed unable or unwilling to grasp that blowing the whistle on a crime does not depend on a trade union stamp of approval.
Source:allafrica.com/
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