According to the TC, the principles of a fair and compliant trial and the right to defense were also violated.
For the plenary of TC judges, in a ruling dated April 3, 2024 and made public this Thursday, the seizure of the defendants' assets violated constitutional principles, noting, however, that the appeal is valid, and the files should be downloaded to appropriate instances "so that verified unconstitutionalities can be expunged".
The TC's position comes in response to the extraordinary appeal of unconstitutionality sent to the body by Valter Filipe da Silva, Jorge Guadens Pontes Sebastião, José Filomeno dos Santos "Zenu" and António Samalia Bule Manuel convicted by the Supreme Court, in 2020, for committing crimes embezzlement, fraud and influence peddling, with penalties set at between five and eight years in prison, in the well-known "500 million" case.
The applicants understand that the Supreme Court's ruling did not observe the principle of legality as it "made a blank on previous questions essential to the discovery of the material truth", such as "devaluing" the answers given by the then President, José Eduardo dos Santos, who died in July 2022 in Spain.
Violation of the principles of legality, access to law and effective judicial protection, broad defense, the presumption of innocence, fair and equitable process, the duty to state reasons for judicial decisions and the adversary system are among the applicants' complaints.
According to the TC plenary, there was a "disregard" by the Supreme Court in relation to the letter contained in the case, signed by declarant José Eduardo dos Santos, in which he authorizes Valter Filipe da Silva, former governor of the National Bank of Angola (BNA ), moving sums of money.
They state that the trial was conducted without evaluating José Eduardo dos Santos' letter, considered "essential for the discovery of the material truth", thus putting into question the safeguarding of constitutionally enshrined guarantees, the right to defense and the adversarial principle.
Given the content of the responses, the Constitutional Court points out, the Supreme Court devalued José Eduardo dos Santos's response letter as it considered that the authentication requirements for the declarant's signature had not been met, nor even the legal sending procedure.
"In view of the above, this court understands that, as the response letter from the former President of the Republic was not admitted, in the terms in which it occurred, the ruling that is the subject of this appeal violated the principles of the presumption of innocence and the adversarial process, as well as the right to defense", reads the 22-page decision.
The Constitution also concludes that the right to a fair and compliant trial was violated, in light of the norms of the Angolan Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights.
The plenary also decided to remove from the concrete criminal framework the crime of fraud due to fraud, alleged by the applicants, "because the elements of the type were not gathered" and in this condition the TC infers that the alleged violation of the principle of immutability of the indictment.
Regarding the complaint about violation of the right to a fair trial, the judges consider that constitutional non-conformities were found in certain procedures taken during the process, such as the non-admissibility of relevant documentary evidence (letter from the former President of the Republic), concluding there is a violation of this right.
