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