Last week (the 7th and 8th), the lawyers for the shipping group Privinvest submitted an appeal to the London court to revoke the diplomatic immunity of the President of the Republic, Filipe Nyusi, so that he could answer questions about the Hidden Debts case, namely the bribes he received to finance his political campaign in 2014.

In September 2023, the Commercial Chamber of the High Court of England and Wales accepted and decreed diplomatic immunity for Nyusi.

Privinvest's appeal is two-pronged, the first being that Filipe Nyusi's immunity challenge is considered null and void because the deadline for this has expired.

"... the Privinvest group claims that Filipe Nyusi lost the right to contest, because he was notified on October 19, 2021 and only contested in June 2023," reads the newspaper. Mozambique Channel (14.02) which details and advances the information.

The other aspect is related to the possibility that Nyusi's immunity is not absolute. A 1998 case involving Chilean General and President Augusto Pinochet was used by Privinvest's lawyers to highlight the parallels with Nyusi's case.

Pinochet was indicted by Spain for war crimes committed during his 17 years in power.

"In their appeal, they claim that it is one thing to invoke immunity for a crime committed on British soil, and another to invoke immunity for a crime committed in a territory other than the United Kingdom," the report said newspaper.

Despite the fact that British law has been amended to apply immunity to the place where the President of the Republic is located (United Kingdom) and not where the crime was committed, for Privinvest's lawyers, Filipe Nyusi is in the same situation as Pinochet.