Tag: Attorney General’s Office

Blood Diamonds: Pre-Trial Investigation Deadline Expired

The defense lawyer acting for Angolan journalist Rafael Marques de Morais has called for the setting aside of the eleven criminal charges laid against him by seven Angolan generals in January. The charges of slander and defamation were brought in reaction to the book Blood Diamonds: Torture and Corruption in Angola, 15 months after its publication, in Portugal. According to lawyer Luís Nascimento, “Angolan law limits the period of preparatory instruction to two months when there are no suspects being held in custody, and this period cannot be extended.” Mr. Nascimento invoked the constitutional principle that prevents double jeopardy. “A citizen may not be tried more than once on the same facts,” he said. In 2012 the generals and the managers of the Sociedade Mineira do Cuango, the diamond mining company in which the generals are shareholders, brought charges in Portugal against the author and his publisher, Tinta-da-China, for calumny, […]

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Journalists File Complaint Against the Police

Journalists Rafael Marques de Morais and Alexandre Solombe on Monday filed a formal complaint against the Angolan Rapid Intervention Police (PIR), after they were detained, physically mistreated and received death threats on September 20. In the complaint, addressed to Attorney General João Maria Moreira de Sousa, the journalists also denounced the damage done to their equipment, including cameras and mobile phones, as an attack on the freedom of the press. Marques and Solombe, together with Voice of America correspondent Coque Mukuta, were seized by the police while interviewing a group of youth activists who had just been released from custody on court orders. The eight youths had been arrested the previous day during an attempted demonstration in Luanda. The journalists began interviewing the youths in the street, about 300 meters from the courthouse where a judge had ordered their release. While they were speaking, 45 PIR members surrounded them, and […]

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