In this Tuesday's session, the judge admitted the documents submitted by the Ministry of Finance to be added to the case file, regarding the dossier for the recovery of the 500 million dollars, but only those in Portuguese.
Valter Filipe, former governor of the National Bank of Angola, António Bule Manuel, director of the BNA's reserve management department, accused of the crimes of embezzlement, is accused in the trial, which started on December 9, 2019, at the Supreme Court. fraud for defrauding and money laundering.
The court is also trying José Filomeno dos Santos, 'Zenu', former president of the Angolan Sovereign Fund, and Jorge Gaudens Sebastião, an Angolan businessman, accused of the crimes of influence peddling, money laundering and fraud for fraud.
At the beginning of the session, Bangula Quemba, defense lawyer for defendant Jorge Gaudens Sebastião, complained that 97 percent of the documents presented by the Ministry of Finance are in English.
Regarding a protest also presented by Bangula Quemba, claiming that the documents presented by the Ministry of Finance and the National Bank of Angola (BNA) are alleged to be incomplete, the judge dispatched the defense to "present participation to those entitled to it if you so choose ".
In statements to the press, Bangula Quemba considered withholding information from the court the absence of documents contained in the dossier submitted by the Ministry of Finance, namely correspondence exchanged between the State, represented by the Norton Rose law firm, as well as the draft consensus agreement , which is attached to the correspondence sent by the Angolan State to the parties, for which reason the protest was presented.
"There is a lack of cooperation and there is an interest in not discovering the material truth of the facts to the detriment of the defendants being tried," said the causidico.
For the defense, it is also "an act of disobedience, because the court is a sovereign entity and when requesting a document from an institution the documents must all come as they were treated by the Public Prosecutor".
According to the lawyer, the Public Prosecutor's Office says that the US $ 500 million was recovered, but the documents in his possession attest that there was a return.
Bangula Quemba stressed that for the defense it is extremely important to clarify this fact, "because they are different things", he claimed: "It is one thing to recover, another thing to return and another thing to return by consensus, which is more important for us".
In relation to the BNA, the lawyer claimed that the documents sent are also incomplete, as documents on the file that were attached to the process that was taking place in Luanda exist, and that now the central bank says they are in his possession.
"Which is also very strange for us, because there are documents that were received by the BNA, with the appropriate attachments, and we find it very strange that now it is said that the BNA does not have these documents," he said.
The case dates back to 2017, when Jorge Gaudens Sebastião presented to his longtime friend, José Filomeno dos Santos, a financing proposal to raise US $ 30 billion for the State.
On this process, the former President, José Eduardo dos Santos, as a witness, confirmed that it was under his guidance that Valter Filipe acted "all in the public interest".
