Speaking to Lusa, on the eve of the start of the trial, scheduled for Tuesday, Francisco Muteka said that the major, detained since June last year in the prison hospital in São Paulo, will be present at the start of the trial.
"He will be present, in addition to being a legal requirement, it is in his interest to be present so that he can eventually demonstrate that he is innocent of all the crimes he is accused of," said the lawyer.
"It is an opportunity for our Angolan justice system to bear witness to an independent, fair justice, capable of providing us with the application of the law in accordance with the structuring principles of justice itself and the rule of law and, above all, the regular functioning of the courts", commented Francisco Muteka.
The mega lawsuit involves 49 defendants and about 200 deponents who will testify about "Operation Caranguejo", a scheme that involved fraudulent payments from the Security House payroll, through which 62 million dollars were allegedly embezzled from the public purse.
Francisco Muteka told Lusa that the process suffers from "gross irregularities", admitting to asking for an annulment of the judgment, since, he argued, it has "incurable vices at the level of preparatory instruction".
According to Pedro Lussati's defender, there is a set of assumptions that lead to the conclusion that "it is a process that has almost no legs to walk and it may be necessary to start over again and instruct something that best fits the principle of a fair trial" .
The trial is scheduled for 9:00 am this Tuesday and will take place at the Talatona Convention Center, depending on the number of actors involved in the process, including defendants, deponents, experts and witnesses.
Among the defendants are officers of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) and civilians, accused of embezzlement, criminal association, undue receipt of advantage, economic participation in business, abuse of power, fraud in the transport or transfer of currency abroad, illicit introduction of foreign currency into the country, illegal currency trading, prohibition of cash payments, withholding of currency, forgery of documents, money laundering and assuming false identity.
Major Pedro Lussati, considered the leader of the group, was arrested in possession of millions of dollars, euros and kwanzas stored in suitcases and crates, and he also owned more than a dozen vehicles.
The long list of witnesses, who will be heard in July and August, include the names of Manuel Vieira Dias "Kopelipa" and Higino Carneiro, among other top generals of the Angolan Armed Forces.
Following these arrests, several officers linked to the President's Security House were dismissed, including General Pedro Sebastião, then Minister of State and head of Security House of João Lourenço, who was replaced in office by General Francisco Pereira Furtado.
