The Center for Public Integrity (CIP) today published a chronological summary on the extradition case of Manuel Chang, the former Finance Minister, from his arrest on December 29, 2018, in South Africa to the current stage, but it also avers that the soap opera may extend for more than a year.

On documentthe CIP recalls the existence of two parties interested in having Chang under its jurisdiction. On the one hand is the Attorney General's Office (PGR), which has already seen all of its requests for Manuel Cheng's extradition to Mozambique refused. And, on the other hand, the United States of America, which has expressed interest in having the former minister at the mercy of its justice.

The two parties, says CIP, accuse Chang of "having received five million US dollars in bribes, paid by Privinvest, to sign the guarantees that allowed the contracting of illegal loans worth 2.1 billion US dollars for the companies ProIndicus, Ematum and Mozambique Asset Management (MAM)."

Recall, this is about the loans obtained without parliamentary approval dubbed "Hidden Debts." Some citizens, who allegedly enjoyed this amount, have been detained since 2019 and were recently tried at the Machava Maximum Security Prison "B.O". The sentences were supposed to be read on Monday (August 1), but that for reasons of complexity and size of the volume of the cases the judge Efigénio Baptista postponed their reading to next November 30.

Note that the arrest of Manuel Chang by Interpol in South Africa on his way to Dubai was in compliance with an international arrest warrant issued by the U.S. Department of Justice and authorized by the District Court for the Eastern District of NewYork.

Chang was rejected a request for parole on bail. There was an extradition order to Mozambique, but then it was annulled, in 2019. There was another extradition order to Mozambique and another annulment, in 2021. This year "the High Court of South Africa, Gauteng division, denies Mozambique's request to appeal the decision that the same judge took on November 10 to have Manuel Chang extradited to the US."

This Tuesday, the PGR said it will appeal the latest decision of the South African High Court, and in the CIP's opinion, "until all judicial resources are exhausted and the South African government is allowed to take the final decision to extradite Manuel Chang, either to Mozambique or to the US, a long time can elapse, more than a year. Read more...