According to a statement sent to Lusa, the family, wife and son, of the businessman, arrested in September and still in custody, in Viana prison in Luanda, "without formal charges," this week filed an appeal "for the unfreezing of their bank accounts in banks in Portugal".
According to the same note, one of the sons of businessman Carlos de São Vicente, Ivo São Vicente, has a business group, which is "even at serious risk of existence. The group, active in the areas of catering, coworking and architecture, has a total of 50 employees, "whose jobs may now disappear due to inability to pay their salaries," the document stresses.
"This inability results from the refusal to appeal to the 'layoff' made by Ivo São Vicente, who, due to having his assets frozen by the Justice, is not in a condition of liquidity to pay the employees and suppliers," the statement states.
The businessman Carlos de São Vicente was arrested on September 22 and was held in preventive custody on suspicion of embezzlement and money laundering crimes, among others.
The reasoning behind the decision to freeze the accounts of Carlos de São Vicente's family members in Portugal "is unknown to those involved, since the letter rogatory sent by Angola is secret from justice," they point out.
Irene Neto, daughter of the first Angolan President, Agostinho Neto, and wife of Carlos de São Vicente, as well as their three children, are currently living in Portugal, refers in the note.
In Angola, the lawyers of the owner of the AAA Group, the main Angolan hotel group, of Carlos de São Vicente, "appealed, at the beginning of last week, to the courts, requesting the impugnation of the decision of the maintenance of the measure of coercion of the preventive imprisonment," it is said in the statement.
For the family of Carlos São Vicente, "the situation they are victims of may be related to recent statements to Jornal de Angola made by the Angolan Attorney General".
In its 30th of November edition, Jornal de Angola quoted statements by Hélder Pitta Gróz, in which he announced the delivery of a study to the executive, in which he defends that the Attorney General's Office "benefits from part of the assets seized in cases", taking into account the current incapacity to solve "the lack of material means for their work, such as facilities, vehicles for magistrates and other necessary equipment", stands out in the note.
Ivo São Vicente, quoted in the statement, states: "We count on the understanding and greater lucidity on the part of the Portuguese authorities, in the face of this 'Kafkian' situation experienced by a family like ours, which has always remained equidistant from political and factional wars in Angola".
According to the same source, all the family's business activity "has been developed in the open over many years, and scrutinized by international entities in three continents", so there is nothing to "fear" from justice. "We only ask for the opportunity to know what we are accused of, so that it is possible to present evidence of the innocence of my father and the whole family," he adds.
The son of businessman Carlos de São Vicente also points out: "It would be regrettable if, after my decision to invest consistently in Portugal, I were now to be forced to file for insolvency for reasons that only the Angolan PGR knows, but which, judging from recent statements made by its highest official, seem to be related only to its own liquidity problems, to which we are obviously unaware, and of which we cannot be victims.
The Angolan judicial authorities have ordered the seizure of several AAA group buildings, the IU and IKA hotels, located throughout the country, and the IRCA building on Rua Amílcar Cabral, in Luanda, belonging to the businessman, who is also being investigated in Switzerland for embezzlement and money laundering.
In addition, a 49 percent minority stake of AAA Activos in Standard Bank Angola, where the businessman was a non-executive director, was seized and he requested suspension of functions for the duration of the process.
PGR also requested the freezing of Irene Neto's accounts and seizure of assets.
