After months of hand-wringing, Mozambique’s Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) has started organising the relevant documents for the disclosure process in the London High Court, regarding a lawsuit against the bank Credit Suisse and others over the $2.2 billion “hidden debts” scandal.
The term “hidden debts” refers to loans worth $2.2 billion obtained from the banks Credit Suisse and VTB Russia by three Mozambican companies, ProIndicus, EMATUM (Mozambique Tuna Company) and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management), with the sole contractor and supplier, the Abu Dhabi-based group Privinvest, selling them fishing boats, radar stations and other assets at exceedingly inflated prices, between 2013 and 2014.
Owing to concerns that Mozambique was not willing to comply with the disclosure process, Judge Robin Knowles informed the court “if I need to exercise my powers for strike-out to ensure compliance with the Republic’s (of Mozambique) duties and the obligations of this litigation, I will, because that is my duty and the fairness of the trial I wish to deliver to the Republic and all parties is at stake.”
The PGR had been arguing that it could not make such documents available to the Court because they were classified top secret and could not be shared.
After the judge’s warning, Mozambique seemed to have resigned itself to the fact that it would lose the case if the Office of the President and the State Information and Security Services (SISE) did not grant the PGR access to the relevant documents – the court was adamant that it needed the relevant documents which were in possession of the two entities.
Seemingly, cooler heads prevailed and both institutions have finally granted the PGR access to the documents, according to a source in the PGR, meaning that Mozambique will finally cooperate with the court.
However, because these are highly classified documents, two people within the PGR are currently going through the pile of documents to determine which to hand over and whether those to be shared with the court need to be redacted.
As soon as the process is over, the PGR will submit the documents to ensure compliance with the disclosure process.
Indeed, the Attorney-General, Beatriz Buchili, told the Assembly of the Republic, Mozambique’s parliament on Wednesday, that “we’re continuing with the preparation process for the trial slated for October 2023, in the London High Court, United Kingdom, going forward with the interlocutory proceedings.”
Comment
The delay in submitting the documents hinged on the fact that when the loans were secured President Filipe Nyusi was the country’s defence minister, chairing the defence cluster which decided on proceeding with the contracting of the $2.2 billion debt.
Nyusi has denied any criminal involvement in the sorry saga, although his signature appears in various documents, arguing that he did not know how ProIndicus had secured the loans with state guarantees, and nor did he know how the company had accessed the loans from Credit Suisse.
Furthermore, Nyusi also denied receiving any military hardware while he was defence minister.
His enemies argued in court that he was being economical with the truth. And it did not happen that the Office of the President and SISE were not forthcoming with the documents.
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