US embassy cable - 05MAPUTO133

UNCLAS MAPUTO 000133 
 
SIPDIS 
STATE FOR AF/S - TREGER, DRL, AND INL/AAE-EROSS 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, KJUS, MZ, KCOR, KCRM 
SUBJECT: MOZAMBIQUE: ACCUSED CARDOSO ASSASSIN ANIBALZINHO 
RETURNS 
 
 
1. Anibal dos Santos Junior ("Anibalzinho"), the man 
convicted of leading the hit squad responsible for the 
November 2000 assassination of investigative journalist 
Carlos Cardoso, arrived in Maputo on January 22 and was 
taken into custody, after having been deported from 
Canada. In January 2003, he had been sentenced by a Maputo 
court to 28 and a half years for his involvement in the 
Cardoso murder. However on May 9, 2004 he escaped from 
Maputo's Mashava Maximum Security Prison and then fled to 
Canada, where he applied for but was denied political 
asylum. 
 
2. The May 9 escape was Anibalzinho's second from the 
capital city's maximum security prison. In September 2002 
Anibalzinho "mysteriously disappeared" from Mashava prison, 
and then remained a fugitive for several months until South 
African police tracked him to a home outside Pretoria. He 
was returned to Maputo just hours after his sentence was 
handed down in absentia by the Maputo City Court on January 
31, 2003. 
 
3. According to press reports, Anibalzinho dropped his 
appeal for asylum in Canada because of a controversial 
Supreme Court ruling that he deserves a retrial in 
Mozambique. The Court, which handed down its decision in 
December 2004, effectively ruled that anyone sentenced in 
absentia to a prison term of more than two years should be 
allowed a retrial. Anibalzinho is also reportedly to stand 
trial separately for his involvement in the attempted 
murder of lawyer Albano Silva, the husband of Prime 
Minister Luisa Diogo. 
 
4. Anibalzinho is now being held in a high security cell 
within the Maputo City Police Command, not at Mashava 
Maximum Security Prison. 
LA LIME