"Therefore, from my point of view, this money does not belong to the Casa Militar (of the President of the Republic) and if it does not belong to the Casa Militar, Major Lussati himself has to say where he got that money, but it is not money from the Casa Militar, it's not state money", said Lieutenant General Luís Ernesto Simão.
The official of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA), listed as a witness in the mediatic Lussati case, defended, during his inquiry, that the State must say where such values came from, including the kwanzas of the 2021 series.
"Therefore, my point of view is that that money does not belong to the Casa Militar and you have to ask Major Lussati what business he did to get that money, but that money is not from the State", he insisted.
The Lussati case, in which 49 defendants are listed, has as its visible face Major Pedro Lussati, assigned to the Military House of the Presidency of the Republic, considered the leader of the group, arrested, on May 12, 2021, in possession of millions of dollars, euros and kwanzas stored in suitcases, crates and in several vehicles.
Among the amount in kwanzas were notes from the 2021 series.
According to Luís Ernesto Simão, the amount seized "cannot be" from the Military House of the President of the Republic, formerly called Security House, because it was necessary for the body to have a "counter value in kwanzas" with the banking unit.
"First, for that money to come out (from a bank) the Casa Militar must have the counter-value, that is, the Casa Militar first has to have the kwanzas to be able to go to the bank to deposit this money and only then would any banking institution this money", he pointed out.
For the Casa Militar to have the kwanzas, "this body would have to have made an exceptional special request for money at the beginning of the year to be able to make the commitment, because without this money being committed it would never be possible for the Casa Militar to raise any money", he explained.
The Casa Militar, he argued, would never have any possibility of issuing any withdrawal order and if it "did not issue any withdrawal order, it means that the Casa Militar did not pay".
"If Casa Militar didn't pay, then he didn't buy it, that money can't be from Casa Militar, that's my point of view, I wasn't there, but I know", said the FAA official, who ran the agency from 1996 to September of 2021.
Lieutenant General Luís Ernesto Simão, who was responding to questions raised by the defense, insisted that the amount cannot be from the Casa Militar, defending the need to locate the 2021 loot orders.
"If it is from the Casa Militar, here, in the same way as we are in this court, then the withdrawal orders will appear, as they appeared in 2008, 2009, the withdrawal order for 2021 will appear to justify the withdrawal of that money, that order of loot has to appear", he shot.
After the financial scandal in the state body, which revealed a millionaire heritage of Major Pedro Lussati, with dozens of houses in Angola and Portugal, and a fleet of state-of-the-art cars, the Angolan President dismissed several generals, and even the Minister of State and head of the President's Security House, Pedro Sebastião.
More than 200 deponents are involved in this mega process whose trial hearings, which began on 28 June, under the supervision of the Luanda District Court, take place at the Talatona Convention Center.
The defendants, including FAA officials and civilians, are indicted for crimes of embezzlement, criminal association, undue receipt of advantage, economic participation in business, abuse of power, fraud in the transport or transfer of currency abroad and others.
