Author: Rafael Marques de Morais

Angola Jails One Teen, Kills Another

A teenager killed during Angola’s taxi drivers’ strike and his cousin jailed without charge reveal how police violence, political cover and judicial silence converge. On the first day of Angola’s taxi drivers’ strike, two teenage cousins left home in different parts of Luanda on ordinary errands. One would not return alive. The other has spent more than six months in prison without charge. José Ngola was 14 years old. Benvindo Ernesto João Zanga was 17. Their stories reveal not an isolated tragedy, but the routine mechanics of repression in Angola — a system in which lethal police force, prolonged pre-trial detention, and political cover converge, while courts remain silent. On the morning of 28 July 2025, José Ngola left his home in Golf II to buy a spare part for his father’s sewing machine. His cousin Benvindo left Camama to purchase a phone battery. That same day, amid police operations […]

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Manufacturing Enemies: Inside Angola’s Security State

Shot by police on the first day of Angola’s taxi drivers’ strike, a street bookseller known as “General Nila” has been held for over six months without formal charges. His case exposes a pattern of repression, suspended legality, and the deliberate manufacture of enemies to sustain power. Detained on 28 July 2025 after being shot by police on the first day of Angola’s taxi drivers’ strike, Serrote José de Oliveira — widely known as “General Nila” — has been held for over six months without formal charges. According to his family and lawyers, he remains in detention despite a guarantees judge’s order for his hospitalization and the rejection of a habeas corpus petition. Earlier that morning, Nila was walking with his younger brothers, Bartolo and Pascoal, to Talatona Municipal Hospital to visit a hospitalized relative. His family says they were not participating in any protest and that there were no […]

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War on Civil Society, Continuity of Plunder

Unable to halt Angola’s structural plunder, the government of João Lourenço has declared war on civil society. The new NGO law turns popular dissent into an enemy of the State and uses “security” as a smokescreen to protect a failing regime and the impunity of plunder. The proposed Law on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that the ruling MPLA is preparing to approve on January 22, 2025, is an act of political desperation. It is designed to conceal the disastrous governance of João Lourenço and to divert attention from Angola’s ongoing structural plunder. It is the latest manoeuvre by a party that has ruled the country without interruption since independence in 1975 — after five decades of state capture. From its preamble to its final chapters, the law abandons the constitutional framework of freedom of association (Article 48 of the Constitution of the Republic of Angola) and places NGOs under a permanent […]

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Angola: A Spy Network That Exists Only on Paper

From Africa Org to “Ciência Política de Angola,” the state constructs a chain of imaginary organisations to accuse journalists and opposition youth of espionage. None of the entities exist, and not a single act meets the legal definition of espionage.If Angola truly believed Russia was behind a coup attempt, it would expel diplomats and sever military ties — not keep a Russian general inside the Presidential Palace. The accusation serves internal politics, not national security. This text examines the espionage charges within Case File 3846/25-CE, the same case in which Judge António Negrão uncritically validated the terrorism theory already dismissed by the Public Prosecutor. If the claim of terrorism was absurd, the accusation of espionage is nothing short of a parody. According to the official narrative, two Russian citizens — Igor Ratchin Mihailovic and Lev Matveevich Lakshtanov — allegedly travelled to Angola to set up a clandestine espionage operation, assisted […]

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Angola: When the State Needs Terrorists, It Creates Them

The Public Prosecutor confirmed the taxi strike involved no crime, no violence and no terrorism — yet the court insisted on a fabricated “state of terror.” The real danger was not in the streets, but in a judiciary willing to turn protest into national security fiction. The Office of the Attorney General of the Republic (PGR) has formally confirmed in writing that the alleged “terrorist conspiracy” connected to the Luanda taxi strike of 28–30 July 2025 never existed. There was no incitement, no violence, no material damage and no criminal plan orchestrated by the leaders of the taxi associations and cooperatives that called the strike. The accusation collapsed entirely, leading to the immediate release of those who had been detained. What had been presented as a national security threat was, in reality, a case of preventive repression and the political manipulation of criminal law.  On 12 December 2025, Public Prosecutor […]

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How Angola Turned a Fashion Designer into a “Terrorist”

Arrested at dawn, stripped of her dignity, and accused of ISIS links without a single act of violence or any evidence, Aisha Lopes became the symbol of a state willing to criminalise faith and invent enemies to justify repression. This report summarizes the case of Aisha Lopes and co‑accused, originally published by Maka Angola in 2017. It demonstrates how the Angolan state fabricated terrorism allegations against innocent citizens — using intimidation, torture, and legal manipulation — in ways that mirror the recent cases of “terrorism” and “espionage” against journalists, youth leaders and association members. The Aisha Lopes case is included here so observers can understand the continuity of abusive investigative methods, the criminalization of religious minorities, and the systematic invention of internal enemies for political purposes. Background of the case On 2 December 2016, just before dawn, more than twenty agents from the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC) and associated security […]

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Angola’s War on Words: Turning Journalism into Espionage

Angola’s case against journalist Amor Carlos Tomé treats opinion as conspiracy, press clippings as espionage, and critical writing as terrorism — exposing the fragility of the state’s narrative, not the danger of the accused. Angolan sports journalist Amor Carlos Tomé has been in custody since August, facing nine serious charges: espionage, terrorism, belonging to a terrorist organization, influence peddling, criminal association, incitement, active corruption, fraud and variations of the same. It is an imposing catalogue. But the weight of the accusation is not matched by the weight of the evidence. Prosecutors claim Tomé was the key operator in a Russian-backed conspiracy to overthrow President João Lourenço. The alleged weapon is not a gun, a militia, or a covert network — but the pen. Angola’s Public Prosecutor says the plot relied on recruiting journalists, analysts and content producers to create “instability” and “social convulsion”. No guns. No clandestine cells. Only texts. […]

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Amor Carlos Tomé: From Journalist to “Terrorist” (Part I)

A public broadcaster journalist is charged with terrorism for texts describing a taxi strike that urged citizens to stay home. The case raises urgent questions about press freedom and criminal law in Angola. The Public Prosecutor’s Office accuses two Russian citizens and two Angolans of jointly committing the crimes of espionage, terrorism, terrorist organization, influence peddling, and criminal association. In this second article of the series, we examine in detail the case of Amor Carlos Tomé, a sports journalist at Angola’s public broadcaster Televisão Pública de Angola (TPA), portrayed in the indictment as the principal executor of an alleged Russian operation of terrorism and espionage aimed at staging a coup d’état against President João Lourenço. On 8 January, the Luanda District Court, 3rd Criminal Section, will begin hearing the defendants in the adversarial pre-trial phase. The accused are the Russian nationals Lev Lakshtanov (65) and Igor Ratchin (38), Francisco Oliveira […]

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When Politics Becomes a Crime in Angola

Angola’s prosecutors allege a Russian-backed plot to overthrow the government. What the indictment offers instead is a case study in how dissent can be rebranded as subversion. Angola’s Public Prosecutor has issued an indictment that reads less like a criminal case than a legal instrument and more like a geopolitical thriller. A foreign entity — Africa Corps (formerly the Wagner Group) — is accused of acting on behalf of the Russian state to engineer a coup d’état, manipulate public opinion, infiltrate political parties, and position itself to seize strategic national assets, including the Lobito Corridor, in the event of regime change. At the core of the case lies a striking premise: political activity, media criticism, and electoral engagement are reframed as instruments of terrorism. According to the indictment, the group allegedly pursued a dual strategy — destabilizing Angola’s political system while positioning itself to capture key economic assets as bargaining […]

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Angola: When the Party Enters the Bank

Angola’s continued placement under enhanced monitoring by the Financial Action Task Force(FATF) has once again exposed deep structural weaknesses in the country’s banking system. More than the existence of laws, what is at stake is Angola’s ability to demonstrate, in practice, an effective separation between political power, bank ownership, and financial supervision. The high concentration of politically exposed persons (PEPs) within the financial system — often concealed through opaque corporate structures — continues to undermine institutional credibility in the eyes of international regulators and partners. When the FATF placed Angola under enhanced monitoring in October 2024, the decision was framed as a technical alert. It led to clear political-institutional and economic consequences: heightened international scrutiny, increased compliance costs for correspondent banking relationships, and a higher perception of country risk. The overlap between political power and the banking system is not new in Angola. Over the years, several financial institutions have […]

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