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Carlos de São Vicente files complaint against Angola at UN for arbitrary detention

The defense of the Portuguese-Angolan businessman Carlos São Vicente, in preventive detention since September 2020, filed a complaint against Angola at the ONUE, "for arbitrary detention and violation of the right to a fair trial", was announced.

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"The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention has received a complaint for the arbitrary arrest of businessman Carlos São Vicente, detained in Luanda since September 22, 2020", says the statement sent to Lusa by the law firm Zimeray Finelle.

In the document handed over to the United Nations, Swiss lawyers François Zimeray and Jessica Finelle, denounce "multiple violations of the rules for a fair trial and conditions of detention, contrary to all notions of justice and dignity", according to the same note.

In particular, the defense highlights the fact that the businessman was the target of "an arrest, neither necessary nor reasonable, ordered and prolonged by an all-powerful Angolan prosecutor, without the control of a judge".

Likewise, prolonged imprisonment along these lines constitutes a "threat to a prisoner suffering from pathologies (mainly diabetes and hypertension) that make him particularly vulnerable to covid-19".

According to the Swiss defense of Carlos São Vicente, the health of the businessman "worsened significantly due to the lack of adequate medical care".

And the businessman is being held in "particularly difficult conditions", in Viana prison, in Luanda, "overcrowded and where inmates cohabit with convicted prisoners, without" access to running water or drinking water ".

In the complaint to the UN, the lawyers also denounce "a blackmail and judicial process obviously motivated by political reasons", initiated "under strong social pressure to which the Angolan government gave in".

According to the statement, there is "violation of the presumption of innocence", and the businessman is "the target of political and media persecution", making him an "ideal scapegoat for the difficulties of a country plagued by corruption".

The Swiss defense of Carlos São Vicente also recalls that on two occasions, in 2008 and 2019, the United Nations "had already pointed out the flaws in the Angolan judicial system" and that international human rights NGOs "also repeatedly denounced the lack of independence of the Angolan justice and the inhuman and degrading conditions of its prisons "in that country.

According to one of the complainants, the lawyer François Zimeray, "the Angolan judicial authorities believe that they can rely on answering that Carlos São Vicente will be treated 'like everyone else'".

"Is this an argument?" - questions the lawyer, adding that the businessman "intends to denounce the conditions of all prisoners in Angola, especially those who do not have the resources to feed themselves and defend themselves".

"For the reasons presented to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, it is requested that an urgent appeal be sent to Angola to proceed with the immediate release of businessman Carlos de São Vicente", concludes the document.

The Angolan businessman was arrested on 22 September, in preventive detention, on suspicion of crimes of embezzlement and money laundering, among others.

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