"We have been working in tune with the Portuguese authorities, all the work that the last few days have been made public is a work that is being done in complete harmony between Angola and Portugal at the level of the judicial entities, and if by chance there is a need to we reach that point (issuing a warrant) together we will see how to proceed ", affirmed the Angolan PGR, Hélder Pitta Grós, when questioned by Lusa.
The magistrate who spoke to journalists in Luanda, on the sidelines of a meeting of prosecutors at the Central Executive Services of the Ministry of Interior, did not advance a time horizon for the execution of the arrest warrant, referring only that the possibility is part of the ongoing process .
"These are procedural issues and as you may imagine I will not be able to advertise something that is in the process here and we are working on it," he stressed.
The Public Prosecutor's Office requested the seizure of bank accounts of businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, "as part of a request for international judicial cooperation by the Angolan authorities", the Portuguese PGR confirmed on 11 February.
The decision was made after the Provincial Court of Luanda decreed, in December 2019, the preventive seizure of personal bank accounts by Isabel dos Santos, her husband, the Congolese Sindika Dokolo, and the Portuguese Mário da Silva, in addition to nine companies in which the businesswoman holds stakes, for alleged private businesses that would have hurt the Angolan State.
In this process, the State, represented by the Public Prosecutor's Office, made an extensive statement in which, in general, it maintains that Isabel dos Santos and her husband used funds, namely from Sonangol, to do business.
In addition to the seizure of bank accounts and shareholdings in Angola, holdings related to several companies in Portugal were also seized.
However, businesswoman Isabel dos Santos intends to challenge the decision to seize assets by the Portuguese court before the European Court of Human Rights, based on the case of the Attorney General of the Republic of Angola, one of her lawyers said in May.
Isabel dos Santos considers that she is the target of a "politically motivated attack" and that, therefore, she has no confidence that she will be subject to a fair trial or that she will be guaranteed personal security if she returns to Angola to defend herself from accusations.
According to the Angolan PGR, Isabel dos Santos is running several civil and criminal cases, in which the State claims values in excess of five billion dollars.
In January, the International Investigative Journalism Consortium also revealed more than 715 thousand files, under the name 'Luanda Leaks', which detail the alleged financial schemes of Isabel dos Santos and her husband, which will have allowed them to withdraw money from the public purse through of tax havens.
