South Africa is expected to extradite former Mozambican finance minister Manuel Chang to Mozambique and not to the US, having accepted assurances from Maputo that he will eventually stand trial for allegedly taking bribes in a U$2 billion “hidden debts” scandal in 2013.
Pretoria arrested Chang in December 2018 in transit through Johannesburg’s OR Tambo International Airport and has held him in jail since then, while it considers rival extradition requests from Mozambique and the United States. Justice Minister Ronald Lamola was in favour of extraditing him to the US on the grounds that he would not face real justice in Mozambique.
The current Islamist insurgency in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province might also have been a factor in Ramaphosa’s decision. For a long time Mozambique President Nyusi resisted entreaties from South Africa and other regional governments to allow a Southern African Development Community military force to enter Mozambique to combat the insurgents. He eventually agreed in June and it is possible that South Africa handing over Chang was the quid pro quo, some analysts speculate.
The US then applied to South Africa to extradite him. Only after that did Mozambique apply to Pretoria to extradite him to Mozambique instead. At that time – more than five years after the alleged offence – it had not yet even charged him and he still enjoyed immunity from prosecution as a member of Parliament.
The Mozambican Forum de Monitoria do Orçamento , an NGO which monitors government finances, joined Lamola’s 2019 legal action to rescind Masutha’s decision to extradite Chang to Mozambique. It said it believed that if Chang were returned to Mozambique, Maputo would bury the case, whereas if he were extradited to the US, the courts there would reveal the full complicity of Chang and other Mozambican government officials in the loan scam.
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They have bigger problems than Pretoria, Baradar took their military equipment, and MAGA wants Potas held responsible
Why are they 'disappointed'? Is SA a colony of USA?