The Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM) yesterday denied reports of a kidnapping on Tuesday morning at the Estrela Vermelha market in the Alto Maé neighborhood of Maputo City.

According to the PRM spokesperson in Maputo City, Marta Pereira, the case reported as a kidnapping or suspected kidnapping was in fact an arrest.

"The situation that occurred this morning at the Estrela Vermelha market, it's not a kidnapping but of an action where agents were deployed to follow up," she said, quoted by Miramar.

She said that it was suspected that the drinks were being smuggled to be sold in the city's market. The action was already known to the customs authorities, and that morning, the vehicle carrying the alcoholic drinks was followed from Maputo province.

Pereira said that the citizen [who was carrying the goods] resisted an 'invitation' from police officers to make a statement at a police station. According to her, this refusal led to shots being fired. She said that the citizen was already in police custody and could be released.

Witnesses found the modus operandi of those police officers, since when that kind of action takes place, the police have come forward to avoid uproar.

The spokeswoman acknowledged that there had been excess on the part of the officers, "but it was in the sense of dispersing people who were trying to rebel against the police officers".