The Prime Minister of Portugal is scheduled to make his first official visit to Angola in the coming days, a significant moment in relations between the two countries and an opportunity to correct what is not going well. Justice is certainly one of the areas in which much work needs to be done to ensure that the relationship is truly bilateral, without any kind of vassalage or subordination.
I am a Portuguese citizen whose personal and company bank accounts were frozen more than 4 years ago at the request of the Angolan justice system. 4 years later, after all the requested clarifications have been provided and all reasonable deadlines for this situation have passed, nothing has changed. I still have no access to my assets and those of my companies, no way to defend myself adequately and no response from the Angolan justice system regarding the case. In Portugal, I also face the inability of the Portuguese justice system to resolve the issue, held hostage by the instructions that it must receive from Luanda to do so… but which are not enough.
Over the past four years, I have submitted several requests to the Angolan Public Prosecutor’s Office, to which I have attached extensive documentation, always informing the Portuguese Attorney General of the same, since the request made by this entity to the Angolan judicial authorities for a certificate of the indictment issued was made public. I have never received any response from the Angolan authorities. At issue is the criminal case in which Isabel dos Santos – with whom I worked – is accused of acts committed within the scope of the Sonangol restructuring project, between 2016 and 2017.
As I consider that I am prevented from adequately exercising my defense – a right that any citizen of a State governed by the rule of law has – I wrote to the President of the Republic, Prof. Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in March 2023, making the nation’s highest magistrate aware of the Kafkaesque situation in which I find myself and the need for urgent clarification of my procedural situation.
Having analysed my arguments, the Presidency of the Republic sent the letter to the then Prime Minister, Dr. António Costa, who in turn informed me that the letter had been forwarded to the office of the Minister of Justice, Dr. Francisca van Dunen, from which I had not received any response. In the hope that the case will now be given more attention, I recently requested an audience with the current Minister of Justice, Dr. Rita Júdice.
This year I also submitted a request to the Supreme Court of Angola with a request for procedural separation – under international judicial cooperation – and a request to transfer the case to the Portuguese courts, so that the process can proceed, from now on, in Portugal.
In this request, submitted on 27 February, I explain how, in addition to meeting all the legal requirements for the delegation of the process, the request is also legitimised by the principle of reciprocity, which was applied in 2018 in the case involving Manuel Vicente, former Chairman of the Board of Directors of Sonangol. The application of this criterion was then recognised by both States and the case opened in Portugal was handed over to Angola so that it could be followed up as best it could, thus putting an end to what was already known as the “irritating” case that was tarnishing relations between the two countries.
Being a simple citizen, I naturally do not claim that my problem is, in the same proportion, “irritating” to the bilateral relationship between Portugal and Angola, but I have the right to demand that the same criteria be applied to me and that the process opened in Luanda be handed over to Portugal for subsequent procedures.
My defence does not conflict with anyone else’s or with the Mutual Assistance Convention, under which my assets were seized. As I stated at the time, Engineer Isabel dos Santos, who is Angolan, will defend herself in Angola. I, who am Portuguese, intend to defend myself in Portugal. I only ask that Angola, recognizing Portuguese sovereignty, just as Portugal recognized Angolan sovereignty in the Manuel Vicente case, accept the transfer of my part in the case to my country. There is already a precedent; I am only asking for equal treatment.
Reinforced by the existence of a precedent, it is important, however, to clarify from the outset that my request for equal treatment to that which has already occurred between both countries is not associated with any expectation of any type of archiving or secretarial solution, but simply the hope of finally having access to the basic right to clarify everything with the justice system of my country, in which, despite everything, I continue to believe.
I am certain that during the visit that the Prime Minister of Portugal, Dr. Luís Montenegro, will make to Luanda, judicial cooperation will be one of the most sensitive topics to be discussed with senior figures of the Angolan State, in the context of the bilateral relations that everyone wants to deepen. But will this really be possible while there continues to be differential treatment between citizens, which turns the basic principle of reciprocity into a mere rhetorical exercise? For the usual toasts, the words of circumstance and the promises of cooperation that we will see in the coming days to make sense, it is imperative that they be accompanied by a strategy for effectively resolving people’s real problems.
Source: expresso.pt
