The vice-president of the Supreme Court says that the arrest of the customs officer in Nampula tarnishes the principle of the rule of law.

The president of the Mozambican Judges Association says that a crime has been committed and there is room for accountability.

The case of the arrest of a customs agent in Nampula Province for allegedly disobeying superior orders continues to cause a lot of ink to flow in the legal system.

This Friday, it was the turn of the vice-president of the Supreme Court, João Baptista Beirão, and the president of the Mozambican Association of Judges, Esmeraldo Matavele, to repudiate the act. In João Baptista Beirão's opinion, the customs agent can take legal action.

"If what is said in the media is true, this is of course serious in a state governed by the rule of law. There can't be arbitrary arrests of that nature," said João Batista Beirão, quoted by the newspaper O País.

"What I can say at the moment is that if the detention is indeed arbitrary as reported, the citizen whose rights have been violated has the right to appeal to the courts," said the source.

Esmeraldo Matavele believes that any arrest in flagrante delicto must at least be accompanied by a court order.

"The law is very clear. Our code of criminal procedure says that detention outside of flagrante must only be carried out with a warrant from the judge," he noted.

If there is a situation where a person is arrested out of flagrante without a warrant from the judge, that arrest is illegal and is a crime, so the public servant, whether a policeman or another public servant of the Mozambican state, who eventually carries out or orders an arrest out of flagrante, that same public servant is committing the crime of illegal arrest, which is included in the penal code," explained Esmeraldo Matavele, president of the Mozambican Judges Association.