The South African lawyers for the Mozambican Attorney General's Office (PGR) told Lusa yesterday that they intend to request reconsideration of their appeal against the extradition of Manuel Chang to the USA in connection with the hidden debts.

At issue is Maputo's request for an appeal, which was rejected by South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), "because there is no reasonable prospect of success in the appeal and there is no other compelling reason for the appeal to be heard" in the context of the hidden debts case in Mozambique, according to the court order to which Lusa had access yesterday.

"We are awaiting instructions from the client [Mozambique's Attorney General], but the way forward is to submit a request to the president of the Supreme Court of Appeal to reconsider this decision," explained lawyer Busani Mabunda.

"If we don't get approval, we'll take the case to the [South African] Constitutional Court," he said.

The South African lawyer pointed out that in June, the Constitutional Court (ConCourt), the highest court in South Africa, "said that it was not in the interests of justice to hear the case at that stage", meaning that "what they were saying was exhaust all your appeals, or avenues, before coming back to us", he stressed.

In this regard, Busani Mabunda explained that the new court application will be submitted at the beginning of January to the deputy president of South Africa's Supreme Court of Appeal, Xola Petse, who is currently acting president of that court.

The South African lawyer for Mozambique's PGR also said that the South African government had "committed itself" before the Supreme Court of Appeal, during the recent judicial application process, to "not extradite" former Mozambican Finance Minister Manuel Chang while the legal process in South Africa to challenge his extradition to the United States of America, as ordered in November last year by the Gauteng provincial court, was ongoing.

"The [South African] Ministry of Justice has made a commitment that it will not extradite Mr. Chang to the US until all legal processes in the country have been exhausted," lawyer Busani Mabunda told Lusa.

In the last four years, the former Mozambican ruler, who is seen as the "key" figure in the so-called hidden debts scandal, has faced two competing requests from the United States and Mozambique for his extradition from South Africa without trial.

At the age of 63, Manuel Chang was arrested on 29 December 2018 at O. R. Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg, en route to Dubai, on the basis of an international arrest warrant issued by the US on 27 December, for his alleged involvement in the so-called hidden debts case in the neighboring Portuguese-speaking country.

Manuel Chang's arrest was legal under the extradition treaty between the US and South Africa, signed in September 1999 in Washington, according to the South African Public Prosecutor's Office.

Chang was Mozambique's finance minister under Armando Guebuza, between 2005 and 2010, and is said to have guaranteed debts of 2.7 billion dollars secretly contracted in favor of Ematum, Proindicus and MAM, public companies mentioned in the US indictment, allegedly created for this purpose in the maritime security and fisheries sectors, between 2013 and 2014.

The loan mobilization was organized by the Russian banks Credit Suisse and VTB.

The loans were secretly endorsed by the Frelimo government, led by the President of the Republic at the time, Armando Guebuza, without the knowledge of parliament and the Administrative Court.

On December 7, 11 of the 19 defendants in the hidden debts case were sentenced to prison terms of between 10 and 12 years and three of them were also ordered to pay compensation to the state equivalent to 2.6 billion euros.

The three accused are Ndambi Guebuza, son of former president Armando Guebuza, and two former secret service leaders, Gregório Leão and António Carlos do Rosário (former director-general and former head of economic 'intelligence', respectively), who each received a 12-year prison sentence.