Arão Tempo reported that his constituents, Maurício Gimbi, André Bônzela and João Mampuela, were arrested on 28 and 30 June in Cabinda and are being held in the civil jail of that province, contrary to information circulated on social networks of which they were in part uncertain.
The lawyer said that he was in that penitentiary unit this Monday and was informed by the prison director that his constituents had been placed in quarantine due to covid-19.
According to Arão Tempo, an application is being prepared to hand over to the judge of shift, in order to assess the conditions of detention and the typification of the offences that are charged to the detainees.
The three activists belong to the political organisation Union of Cabindans for Independence (UCI), which has been in existence for a year, with Maurício Gimbi and André Bônzela arrested on 28 June while awaiting transport.
"They were surprised and arrested by plain-clothes police, they were not in uniform, they had masks like ninjas, and they only wanted to take Maurício Gimbi, but Bônzela insisted on accompanying him, since they were together," he explained.
Arão Tempo mentioned that the two were conducted to criminal investigation and, without any information, "they were only put in the cells, with inhuman conditions and remained there for three days".
According to the lawyer, last Tuesday, the two were heard by the Public Prosecutor, and that same day a third activist was arrested.
Asked why they had been arrested, Arão Tempo explained that one day before the first arrests, they had been glued on the street with the words: "Down with weapons, down with war, Cabinda is not Angola, live the dialogue".
"It was enough for the police to think that it was the president of the UCI, Maurício Gimbi, his vice president (Bônzela) and Mampuela, who is director of the office of the president, that they had put these pamphlets", he pointed out.
The causidist stressed that in Cabinda the arrests of activists "are recurrent", but it is the first time that members of the ICU have been arrested.
Urged to comment on the legality of the arrests, Arão Tempo stated that "when individuals are charged with crimes of this kind, whether or not there is evidence, they are immediately arrested in the criminal investigation".
"They are indicted for these crimes and this always depends on superior orders, they are arrested according to the will of the Angolan political system", the lawyer stressed, adding that he is preparing to challenge the coercive measures to be changed.
In his contact with his constituents, Arão Tempo said that they "are unmotivated", and Maurício Gimbi considered the arrests unnecessary, "because the will was never to create rifts or wars", but always asked that "there be dialogue with the Angolan government, to solve definitively the problem of Cabinda".
The Ministry of the Interior, in a statement released on Sunday, to which Lusa had access this Monday, confirmed the detention of the three citizens, for the crimes of rebellion, outrage to the State and criminal association, validated and maintained by the Public Prosecutor's Office, and were conducted on 1 July to the prison of the civil prison of Cabinda.
