The Attorney General’s Office (PGR) clarified that the reply to the letter rogatory to the authorities of the Swiss Confederation, circulated on social networks and on information sites, does not change the process involving Carlos Manuel de São Vicente.
According to PGR’s communications director, Álvaro João, the letter dated August 13 was sent before evidence emerged that indicated the entrepreneur in the crimes of embezzlement, money laundering and economic participation in business, which resulted in the seizure of assets and shareholdings on behalf of the former Chairman of the Board of Directors of the AAA insurance company. The letter rogatory, he reinforced, “was sent before we had enough elements for the initiation of the respective criminal proceeding, hence the content of the response sent to Switzerland, because in fact there were still no such charges against the accused”, he clarified.
In the context of judicial cooperation, he added, it is important that the parties are guided by ethics and responsibility, and should not hide what is asked of them. “The PGR simply said that the citizen was not being investigated in Angola and, on an ongoing basis, addressed a letter rogatory asking for more details about the case”. He added that after the response of the Angolan authorities to the letter and other elements collected locally, it was possible to gather evidence to open the process, which was further consolidated by the visit of the national director of the PGR Asset Recovery Service, Eduarda Rodrigues, to Switzerland. .
With the steps taken, he added, the said document lost its validity. “The important thing is that there is a process and it is there and continues. The assets were seized and he was constituted defendant ”, said Álvaro João, stressing that the procedures for completing the process are being complied with to be sent to the Court. According to Álvaro João, at the time when Switzerland sent the letter rogatory, there were not enough elements and neither had they provided information or the seized amount that was under investigation.
He added that the Swiss authorities only sent the letter rogatory to find out more details and for the country to act internally. “We had to answer their letter so they could answer ours and it was through the second, more detailed letter, and complaints from Carlos Rosado de Carvalho, who provided more elements to investigate, that the PGR proceeded with the investigative process,” he underlined. “At PGR we do not guess, complaints must arrive and be clear”, he stressed.
In reply to the letter rogatory sent by the Swiss authorities, circulating on social networks, the PGR states that “after all the diligences requested, having analyzed the records and documents attached to this letter rogatory, it was concluded that in Angola there are no signs of the practice of crimes of corruption, money laundering, economic participation in business or any other crime in connection with the facts contained in the letter rogatory with No. B-20-1149-1, by respondent Mr. Carlos Manuel de São Vicente ”.
Seizures
As a result of the investigations, the PGR last month decreed the preventive detention of the former chairman of the Board of Directors of the defunct AAA insurance company. The defendant was taken to the jail in Viana, after the second interrogation in the National Directorate of Investigation and Penal Action of the Public Ministry (DNIAP). Among the foundations of preventive detention were the danger of escape and disruption of investigations.
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