Chang detained pending review of extradition decision
Mozambique’s ex-Finance Minister Manuel Chang will have to spend at least a few more weeks in a South African prison.
On Friday, the Gauteng High Court (Johannesburg) effectively interdicted Justice Minister Ronald Lamola from sending Chang home until the court had reviewed Lamola’s decision to extradite him to Mozambique.
The same court will conduct a full review on 17 September.
It could uphold Lamola’s decision of 17 August to extradite Chang to Mozambique to stand trial on various charges arising out of his complicity in the $2.2bn so-called ‘hidden debt’ scandal there... or the court could decide instead to extradite him to the US to face charges arising out of the same corruption case... or the court could send the matter back to Lamola to reconsider his decision to extradite Chang to Mozambique, says a Daily Maverick report.
The virtual court hearing followed a week of legal drama as the Mozambican NGO Forum de Monitoria do Orcamento (FMO) – the forum for monitoring the budget – scrambled to prevent Lamola sending Chang home.
Lamola at first refused to give FMO an undertaking that he wouldn’t send Chang home before the High Court had ruled on an urgent FMO application for an order interdicting him from doing so.
On Wednesday it looked as though Lamola was going to spirit Chang out of the country to pre-empt this FMO court order.
But Lamola relented and gave an undertaking not to extradite Chang before the court had ruled. Later on Wednesday the High Court made Lamola’s undertaking an order of the court.
On Friday the High Court met again to consider FMO’s application for the urgent order interdicting Lamola from sending the Mozambican home.
In the meantime, both the Mozambique and SA governments surprisingly withdrew their opposition to this order.
So, notes the DM report, all the parties to the case agreed that the order would be removed from the court record and, instead, Wednesday’s court order preventing Lamola from sending Chang home would be extended until the full hearing of the case on 17 September.
FMO believes Chang will not face real justice in Mozambique and should instead be extradited to the US where it believes he will face justice and Mozambicans will learn exactly what happened to the $2.2bn in international loans to the Mozambique Government, which Chang signed off on in 2013 and 2014.
The loans were supposed to finance an ambitious fleet of fishing trawlers and military patrol vessels to catch tuna in Mozambique’s waters and prevent foreign fishing companies from poaching there.
The vessels were bought – at hugely inflated prices – but the project never took off and the money was allegedly siphoned off in bribes to Chang and others.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
