Authorities want their statements to be made in a "special forum" to avoid publicity. That will be violating the principle of equality in court, says analyst.

According to VOA, more than just a calendar date, next February 17 is the day of all expectations in the hidden debts trial.

According to the schedule, Armando Guebuza, former President of the Republic will sit in the declarants' bench, to talk about everything he knows.

His pride wounded by the arrest of his son, accused of involvement in a US$2.2 billion loan default, and still shaken by the murder of a daughter, sources close to the former statesman, quoted by the weekly Savana and Voa, say that Guebuza wants, on the day of his hearing, all the press spotlight, to say everything that is in his soul.

Still according to Savana, this situation is generating discomfort in some sectors of the ruling party, and as the hearing approaches, there are political-legal moves to prevent the publicizing of the act, and channel it to a special forum, which if it happens, would be, for analyst Albino Forquilha, a disappointment for Mozambicans.

"Even though he was a President (of the Republic), if Guebuza goes there as a declarant and everyone who is going there has their positions, big or small, the principle of equality between people must continue to be in force," he said.

"If we get to this stage where, for some reason, I don't know what, Guebuza is taken to a special forum, then it means that we are violating a whole principle on which this trial should be based," Forquilha analyzed.

In public opinion, the hidden debt trial has always been surrounded by suspicions of politicization. Now, Forquilha says there are enough facts to confirm what has always been suspected.

"From the moment the procedural subjects ask that President Nyusi be brought in, as a declarant, to say what he knows and, insistently, the judge says no, it is clear that the process is politicized," he pointed out.