According to news in the local press, Father Valentim Joaquim Jamba, assigned to the Sé Catedral de Benguela parish, detained on Wednesday by the Criminal Investigation Service (SIC), was suspended from all pastoral activities on Thursday night.
In a press release signed by the bishop of Benguela, António Francisco Jaca, the local diocese says that while the investigations are ongoing, the priest is also suspended from his duties at the Institute of Religious Sciences in Angola.
According to the Benguela government, the priest was arrested for alleged involvement in illicit business, through alleged intermediation in the process of free sale of the state's housing assets in those neighborhoods.
The Benguela government's media office said that the crime, now detected, "has nothing to do" with the process carried out by the local government and which concerns the targeted sale of housing.
The information note adds, on the other hand, that the intermediation work for the sale of residences to State officials was "exemplarily" coordinated by Father José Inácio Hiliek, adviser to the provincial governor, and "there is no connection" between the priest / advisor and the detainee by the SIC.
