The statements, made by Manuel Vicente on August 6 and November 5, 2020, were read this Tuesday at a hearing at the Supreme Court, where the trial of Generals Manuel Hélder Vieira Dias Júnior "Kopelipa" and Leopoldino Fragoso do Nascimento "Dino" has been ongoing since March 10. They are accused of defrauding the Angolan state of millions of dollars.
Also on trial are businessmen Yiu Haiming, Fernando Gomes, and the companies Plansmart International Limited, Utter Right International Limited, and China International Fund (CIF).
At the time of the events, Manuel Vicente was chairman of the board of directors of Sonangol E.P. and coordinator of Angola-China cooperation relations.
According to Vicente, it was under the guidance of José Eduardo dos Santos that he traveled to China several times to negotiate financing and investments.
The first amount raised was 2 billion dollars, signed in late 2003, accompanied at the time by Finance Minister José Pedro de Morais and the governor of the National Bank of Angola, Amadeu Maurício.
"It was Hélder Bataglia who told José Eduardo dos Santos that he knew a Chinese businessman intending to invest in Angola," revealed the former president of the state-owned oil company.
The Portuguese-Angolan businessman Hélder Bataglia was one of the founders and president of Escom (Espírito Santo Comércio), the international arm of the Espírito Santo Group (GES) for Africa. His name has surfaced in several investigations linked to the collapse of GES and the power networks in Angola, although he has always denied any wrongdoing.
Manuel Vicente also stated that he was one of the founders of the Hong Kong-based company China Sonangol, which had three shareholders: Sonangol E.P., with 30 percent of the shares, and Chinese businessmen Sam Pam and Madame Lo Fong, with 70 percent.
In Angola, the company maintained only a representative office, and Vicente served as chairman of the non-executive board of directors, with the Chinese partners assuming the executive role.
The former executive stated that China Sonangol and Sonangol E.P. were "completely separate" entities, with no connection in their daily operations, but that the state-owned oil company sold oil to China Sonangol to "maintain the relationship the Angolan state had with China" and "prevent the oil from being sold to a single Chinese entity."
He also specified that China Sonangol was part of Block 3, operated by Sonangol Pesquisa & Produção, and that there was "a normal relationship between companies."
China Sonangol was created in 2004 as a joint venture between the Angolan state-owned company Sonangol and Chinese partners represented by the private company 88 Queensway Group, led by Sam Pa and Lo Fong Hung.
Based in Hong Kong, it was one of the main axes of Angola-China cooperation in the post-civil war period, channeling bilateral financing and infrastructure investments in exchange for Angolan oil, among other controversial transactions.
Confronted with allegations that Sonangol E.P. had financed China Sonangol with 200 million dollars in 2005 and 250 million dollars in 2009, Manuel Vicente denied this, saying they were "supplies"—contributions resulting from the Angolan state-owned company's shareholding.
"These were Sonangol E.P.'s cash funds, and if they weren't reimbursed, they needed to be collected," he said, emphasizing the need to evaluate "the maturity of the investments to gauge the return on investment."
According to Manuel Vicente, China Sonangol, as a Sonangol E.P. client, received 27 oil shipments between 2004 and 2006, valued at more than 1.5 billion dollars, for which it paid in full: "It's impossible for China Sonangol to receive oil and not pay."
In his 34-page testimony, read in court this Tuesday, Manuel Vicente stated that neither "Kopelipa" nor "Dino" are partners in CIF Angola, clarifying that General Dino was only brought in to help with the company's restructuring, under the guidance of José Eduardo dos Santos.
He also denied that CIF received payments in oil from Sonangol, considering it "impossible to use this mechanism to market this product."
The defendants face charges of embezzlement, fraud, document forgery, criminal conspiracy, abuse of power, money laundering, and influence peddling.
According to the indictment, the targeted companies were allegedly used to set up a scheme around a financing agreement between Angola and China for post-civil war national reconstruction, involving the China International Fund, its subsidiaries, and Sonangol.
