By MOZTIMES
Maputo (MOZTIMES) – Mozambican Attorney-General Americo Letela dropped an unexpected bombshell during a parliamentary debate in Maputo on Thursday, when he suggested that the country’s most notorious assassin, the late Momade Assife Abdul Satar (better known as Nini Satar) might have been involved in the murders of opposition political activists Elvino Dias and Paulo Guambe on 19 October 2004.
Dias was the lawyer of presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane, and Guambe was an election agent of Podemos, which, at the time, was the main party supporting Mondlane.
They were murdered when their car was ambushed in a densely populated area of central Maputo on the night of 19 October.
Dias and Guambe were outspoken supporters of Mondlane, and so it was assumed that the murders were politically motivated, in the wake of the 2024 general elections, which Mondlane and his supporters argued were fraudulent
But Letela suggested the murders might have nothing to do with the elections. His alternative involves an alleged forgery committed by Edite Chilindro, supposedly the lover of Nini Satar at the time.
Satar was serving a sentence for his part in ordering the murder of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso in 2000. Satar was also regularly accused of organising kidnappings from his prison cell.
Dias was supposedly the lawyer for Edite Chilindro, who was accused of falsifying her own death certificate.
This was the first time this version of events has come to light, and the key figures mentioned by Letela are not available for questioning – Satar because he died in his prison cell last year, while Letela described Chilindro as “a fugitive”.
Satar was one of three businessmen who ordered the murder of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso on 22 November 2000. He escaped from prison twice but was recaptured and eventually sentenced to a prison term of 30 years.
He was found dead in his prison cell on 28 March 2025. It was believed that he died of natural causes.
Letela claimed that Chilindro, who was serving a sentence for her part in the 2016 murder of prosecutor Marcelino Vilanculios, had simulated her own death. A South African death certificate was forged, he claimed – but he did not explain how she had left the Mozambican prison.
Elvino Dias was accused of the forgery, and the case should have come to court on 20 October 2024, by which time Dias was dead.
Letela did not produce any evidence to back up this strange story. It has completely absent from his written report, delivered on Wednesday, and was only mentioned when he was replying to questions from parliamentarians on Thursday. (MT)
