In the document, issued on 3 November, the Angolan authorities ask to "locate and arrest with a view to extradition" the Angolan citizen Isabel dos Santos.
According to the document, Isabel dos Santos is wanted on suspicion of "crimes of embezzlement, qualified fraud, illegal participation in business, criminal association and influence peddling, money laundering", with a maximum sentence of 12 years in prison.
In the request "guarantees are given that extradition will be requested after the person's arrest, in accordance with national laws and/or applicable bilateral and multilateral treaties".
The document clarifies that it is a preventive arrest warrant. "This request must be treated as a formal request for pre-trial detention, in accordance with national laws and/or applicable bilateral and multilateral treaties".
The international arrest warrant mentions that the businesswoman is usually in Portugal, the United Kingdom or the United Arab Emirates.
According to the document, between 2015 and 2017, the businesswoman created financial mechanisms "with the intention of obtaining illicit financial gains and laundering suspicious criminal operations", through "information about public money of the Angolan State" that she obtained in her capacity as administrator of the state oil company Sonangol.
According to the warrant, Isabel Dos Santos will have harmed the Angolan State in the total amounts of more than 200 million euros, committing crimes of embezzlement, qualified fraud, illegal participation in business and money laundering.
Agência Lusa contacted Interpol, which forwarded information about this case to the Angolan authorities.
The English and Portuguese authorities also did not confirm or deny the existence of the warrant.
Businesswoman says she does not know international arrest warrant
An official source for Isabel dos Santos told Lusa that her lawyers consulted the Interpol database and did not find any reference to an arrest warrant against the businesswoman, contradicting information reported on Thursday.
According to a document that the Lusa agency had access to on Thursday, and from which it released a news item, Interpol issued an international arrest warrant for extradition on behalf of Isabel dos Santos, at the request of the Attorney General's Office of Republic (PGR) of Angola.
In a statement sent to Lusa, and "in light of the news published about the international arrest warrant", an official source for Isabel dos Santos says she is unaware of any Interpol instructions and is intrigued by the fact that the businesswoman is being sought after "almost three years existence of such processes", in which "the defendant was never constituted", the same happening with any of its companies.
"Also over these almost three years, (Isabel dos Santos) has formally made herself available to provide statements whenever she was summoned, which happened, for example, in a process that ran through the Bank of Portugal, where, on two occasions, she provided all the clarifications requested. He also made statements in the process, which he brought in Portugal, as an assistant", explains the statement from the official source.
Isabel dos Santos is still surprised by the fact that the authorities claim that they do not know her whereabouts, since the document justifying the Interpol warrant only indicates that "the businesswoman is usually in Portugal, the United Kingdom or the United Arab Emirates".
"Strictly speaking, the authorities are aware of her address, which appears, in fact, in the powers of attorney that were attached to the processes", argues the official source, adding that the businesswoman was notified to that same address "in the context of criminal proceedings that are running under in Portugal".
According to the document that Lusa had access to on Thursday, between 2015 and 2017, the businesswoman created financial mechanisms "with the intention of obtaining illicit financial gains and laundering suspicious criminal operations", through "information about public money of the Angolan State" which she achieved as administrator of the state oil company Sonangol.
Isabel dos Santos' official source recalls, however, that "no accusation was made", so the businesswoman did not have the opportunity to "exercise the contradictory" on the facts of which she is accused, stressing that "the processes continue in secret from justice, which makes the exercise of the rights of defense even more difficult".
"The facts related to the period in which she worked at Sonangol were not judicially confirmed - on the contrary", defends the official source of Isabel dos Santos.
According to the international arrest warrant, Isabel dos Santos will have harmed the Angolan State in the total amounts of more than 200 million euros, committing crimes of embezzlement, qualified fraud, illegal participation in business and money laundering.
