Ver Angola

Defense

Lawyer denounces Major Lussati’s “illegal arrest” and asks for a “habeas corpus” response

Major Pedro Lussati's lawyer today denounced the "illegal arrest" of the Angolan military, three days after the expiry of the preventive detention period, and underlined that judges "have an obligation" to respond to the request for 'habeas corpus'.

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"Since Sunday [November 6] the arrest has been illegal. You can respond to 'habeas corpus' at any time, at any time the decision is issued and that is why we send the 'habeas corpus' and the request to the judge holder of the process", said the lawyer Francico Muteka to Lusa.

The representative of Major Pedro Lussati, considered the head of a group composed of the remaining 48 co-defendants who allegedly defrauded the State in millions of dollars, sent, last Friday, two legal instruments in favor of the accused.

The injunction of 'habeas corpus', due to the illegal arrest of the considered 'millionaire major', detained on May 13, 2021, was referred to the presiding judge of the Luanda District Court and to the judge in charge of the case, Andrade da Silva.

The lawyer argued that either one judge or another can respond, because the two requests "have almost the same foundations".

For the judge of the case, he mentioned, "it was not necessary, because he was the judge who extended the preventive detention and he knows that the term ended on the 6th, he can unofficially release the defendant".

"They have the obligation to respond favorably to our request because the deadline has expired and it is no longer possible to extend it because the law does not allow it", said Francisco Muteka.

"So what we must do is ask, before starting the reading of the judgment, scheduled for Thursday, that he pronounces, he is obliged and if he does not respond he incurs illegality", concluded the lawyer.

In the trial, which began last June 28, 49 defendants are enrolled, with emphasis on the major of the Angolan Armed Forces (FAA) Pedro Lussati, assigned to the Military House of the Presidency of the Angolan Republic, detained in possession of millions of dollars, euros and kwanzas stored in suitcases, crates and in several vehicles.

Pedro Lussati, in the arguments in his defense presented on October 24, refused the accusations and said that the money held in his possession is the result of his assets of more than 100 million dollars and that they also belong to his partners.

The Angolan Public Prosecutor's Office asked for the charges to be maintained and for "maximum sentence" to Major Pedro Lussati and the other 48 co-defendants for acting in "bad faith", in "willful manner" and defrauding the Angolan State in millions of dollars.

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 transportation and others.

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