The ruling of the Provincial Court of Luanda that decreed the seizure of bank accounts and holdings of Isabel dos Santos, her husband, Sindika Dokolo, and the president of Banco do Fomento de Angola, Mário Leite da Silva, is dated 23 December, and the State would have up to 30 days to pursue the main action.
But the judicial holidays imply a suspension of the deadline, so nothing should happen until the opening of the new judicial year, between the first and second week of March, indicted the judicial source.
The injunction is an interim judicial measure to safeguard the interests of injured parties by, for example, stopping the release of goods.
"It does not mean that the assets have been confiscated, it is to prevent them from being dissipated or removed from the country, and there the state decides to take this measure to be compensated," said the same source.
Only then will be cited the parties that have been seized (the daughter of the former president, José Eduardo dos Santos, her husband, and Mário Leite da Silva, appointed as manager of the business of Isabel dos Santos) who will have to provide lawyers for their defense.
According to the judicial source, "all decisions concerning the seizure of assets will be resolved in the main proceedings, this is a precarious measure".
At this point, the State, represented by the Public Prosecution Service, will have to prove that certain assets were acquired with public money, there will have to be documentary evidence.
Asked if Angola requested support from the Portuguese authorities to obtain some of these documents, the judicial source said that "at this stage, bilateral cooperation mechanisms in the area of justice have not yet been activated", because the target of the seizure were accounts and holdings in companies held in Angola.
Portugal maintains permanent cooperation mechanisms with Angola in the area of justice in terms of sharing information, such as letters rogatory and requests for seizure or location of assets, which may be set in motion at a later stage.
"I do not neglect the possibility, but for the time being these steps have not yet been taken," indicated the same source.
The decision to seize personal bank accounts of Isabel dos Santos, Sindika Dokolo, and Mário Leite da Silva, in addition to nine companies in which the entrepreneur holds shares, was known on 30 December.
According to a statement issued at the time by the Attorney General's Office, the daughter of the former President, Sindika Dokolo and Mário Leite da Silva entered into business deals with the state through the diamond-selling companies Sodiam and with the state oil company Sonangol, damaging the state by more than a billion dollars.
