In 2013, the article in Forbes magazine stated, between the complaint and the slander: “For President Dos Santos, it is an infallible way to withdraw money from his country, while maintaining a supposed distance. If the 71-year-old agent leaves the Government, he can recover the assets that are with his daughter. In the event of death, she keeps the treasure in the family. If generous, Isabel can choose to share with her seven known half-brothers. Or not. Everyone in Angola knows that the brothers despise each other. ” Forbes then transcribed an unofficial statement: “Ms. Isabel dos Santos is an independent businesswoman and a private investor who represents only her own interests. Its investments in Angolan and / or Portuguese companies are transparent and were made through transactions carried out under competitive conditions involving external entities, such as law firms and reputable banks. ”
After the article was published, a statement by Isabel dos Santos denied the allegations of illegitimate enrichment published by the North American magazine and guaranteed that “the Angolan President and government never illegally transferred shares of companies to Isabel dos Santos or to any companies controlled by this businesswoman ”.
Four years later, on February 26, 2007, the Daily News published an article entitled “’Furacão’ picks up the daughter of the President of Angola”, with a photo of José Eduardo dos Santos accompanied by the caption: “Eduardo dos Santos. Society linked to the eldest daughter of the Angolan President appears involved in the process. ” In the text, it was written: “A company created in the USA through the trust company PIC International Consultants was one of the targets of the most recent search carried out by the Central Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DCIAP) in the context of ‘Operation Hurricane’. This company is in the name of Isabel dos Santos’ husband and was used by the couple to buy an apartment in Lisbon ”. It was added that all taxes related to the purchase of the apartment had been paid.
This news led the Attorney General’s Office to release on February 28, 2007 a clarification in which he stated: “The DCIAP clarifies that the news published in the media that Ms. D. Santos Santos, daughter His Excellency the President of the Republic of Angola, is the subject of suspicion or investigation under the process known as ‘Operation Hurricane’ ”. On March 1, 2007, DN published another news item entitled “’Operation Furacão’ – MP confirms connection of Angolan PR daughter to offshore”, Noting that the PGR did not deny“ that in the beginning of February documentation related to the constitution of a company was collected offshore”Linked to Isabel dos Santos, adding:“ In the note sent to the Diário de Notícias, the Public Ministry does not clarify, then, what is the destination to give to the apprehended documentation and why it was apprehended ”. The lawyer himself ended up confirming to Lusa the information conveyed by the newspaper: “All taxes related to the purchase of the apartment have been paid”.
On March 16, 2007, a complaint filed by Isabel dos Santos against Diário de Notícias because of this news was brought to ERC.. On August 8, 2007, ERC considered “the action taken by the newspaper to be reprehensible, urging it to ensure in the future, in the exercise of its editorial activity, strict compliance with the requirements applicable in terms of rigorous information and, as well as , strict adherence to the rules regarding image and good name and reputation ”.
In mid-July 2007, Isabel dos Santos would see two profiles published. In Italy, in the newspaper The print, and in Portugal, in the magazine Olá. The two will cause you to react again vehemently.
In the first, on July 15, 2007, the Italian newspaper published an investigation by journalist Giulia Vola, entitled ‘The black goddess of intrigue’ (‘A deusa negra da intriga’), who claimed that Isabel dos Santos would be José Eduardo dos Santos’s iron forehead as administrator of a great business empire, including oil, diamonds and banking, and that these assets resulted from acts of corruption, embezzlement and favoritism while daughter of the President of Angola. It started with the description of Isabel dos Santos on the island of Luanda drinking Moët & Chandon, saying that she managed “all of her Angolan heritage distributed by oil, diamonds and banks” and that these “reins of the financial empire changed for Isabel while she was still I was not thirty years old and the civil war had ended shortly before. ”
The article also made reference to the alleged collusion between the Angolan political and military class and international figures of dubious reputation, including the Sicilian mobster Victor Palazzolo, a fugitive from Italian justice. According to the newspaper, “the business of Victor Palazzolo, who also uses the name Robert Von Palace-Kobaltschenko, will also have crossed with those of Isabel and general-entrepreneurs, among others, in the diamond sector”, he wrote Rafael Marques.
As of August 3, 2007, or The print had to publish the correction to the article, because of the “right of reply sent by Mrs. Isabel dos Santos.”
“The information contained in the article ‘The black goddess of intrigue’, signed by Giulia Vola, published on July 15, 2007, is wrong. Angola is a parliamentary republic and José Eduardo dos Santos is the President, not a dictator, legitimately elected in 1979 and re-elected in 1992. It was through his leadership that Angola became a multiparty democracy. There is no financial empire in the hands of the President and consequently the claim that Isabel dos Santos, the President’s daughter, managed such a financial empire is absolutely false. There is no company called Futungo and, in general, no company performs the functions assigned to it. Sonangol is a state-owned company. Banco Nacional de Angola is a state bank that does not carry out commercial banking operations. The claim that Isabel dos Santos, through the (non-existent) Futungo society, would have placed foreign accounts between four and eight billion dollars is absolutely false. How false is the accusation, launched by the NGOs, that in 2001 two billion dollars would have disappeared: information denied after the determined control of the company KPMG. The President of Angola has no responsibility for the issue of ‘Angolagate’, a scandal caused by intrigues between French and Russian businessmen. Isabel dos Santos was never friends with the Russian businessman Lev Leviev. Isabel dos Santos and her family never met, much less had commercial relations, with the mobster Victor Roberto Palazzolo, or with anyone related to organized crime. The oil trade is carried out through public and transparent procedures without any direct involvement from the President, let alone from his daughter. ”
On October 2, 2007, Isabel dos Santos filed a formal complaint with the Italian consulate in Luanda against journalist Giulia Vola, against the director of the newspaper La Stampa, Giulio Anselmi, and against Luca Ciarrocca, director of the Wall Street Italia newspaper, who also published the article. In that complaint, he argues that the text “has a highly defamatory content”: “It is harmful to my honor and my reputation, as well as to the reputation of my family and the Angola institution”. Isabel dos Santos also repudiated the fact that she was considered the administrator of an empire: “I am the daughter of President José Eduardo dos Santos and I do not manage any assets, much less a financial ’empire’ of the President, an ’empire’ that simply does not exist . ” He also stressed that it is not “true that the subscriber has been busy with oil” and “with the supervision of his father” and that “millions of dollars disappear from the state coffers” that should have been used for “food, medicine and infrastructure”: “In reality, in Angola, the oil trade has undergone public, transparent and controlled procedures, without any direct involvement from the President of the Republic and even less from the underwriter.”
Soon after, in the July 19, 2007 edition, Saturday published an article entitled “The Empire of the President’s Daughter”, signed by Helena Cristina Coelho, Nuno Tiago Pinto and Ricardo Marques. On July 27, 2007, Isabel dos Santos also sent a text of right of reply, which was published in the Saturday edition of August 16, 2007. Two days earlier, on August 14, a complaint had been filed at ERC by Isabel dos Santos against the magazine. In this complaint, the Angolan referred that the article was “full of inaccuracies, exaggerations and falsehoods, which denote the total absence of journalistic rigor on the part of its authors”. He spoke of “various dishonorable considerations about character and life”, as well as “totally false imputations that seriously hurt his honor and consideration.”
Then, in the formulation of the complaint, he contested several examples of the article, specifically the references “to the putative influence of the target on Sonangol’s strategies, vis-à-vis BCP Millennium; the abuse, by the latter, of Angolan state resources, as an alleged representative of Sonangol; the existence of partnerships between your company and BES, in Angola; the role it would play in the expatriation of family capital; your academic qualifications; the bohemian lifestyle allegedly practiced by the plaintiff and, still, the illegalities and excesses that occurred at her birthday and wedding parties. ”
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