MAPUTO – Judges in the city made history by going on strike. This was in support of their fellow judge, Mr Dinis Silica, who was assassinated recently. His belongings were also found in Machava-Socimol, in the southern city of Matola.
Media had reported that the Mozambican Association of Judges (AMJ) did not call the action a strike, but a “day of reflection” – mainly about the question of judges’ security – or lack of it – following Silica’s murder.
The AMJ urged them to cancel all trials and other procedures set for that day and reschedule them. The protest was clearly aimed at putting pressure on the government to improve their security, and also repudiated the open hostility with which the police had recently viewed the judiciary.
Fellow judges were infuriated that the police seemed to concentrate more on the large sums of money found in Silica’s car (equivalent to about US$117 000) than on tracking down the assassins. Suggestions that he might have taken bribes, when there had been no earlier hints of corruption in his entire career, were regarded as character assassination. Yet, just before he died, Silica was in the process of granting bail to a suspect, Mr Manish Cantilal, a young businessman of Asian origin who is accused of four kidnappings.
On Tuesay, a new judge who took over the case did indeed give him bail to the equivalent of
US$32 000.
Silica was murdered when he stopped his car at a set of traffic lights in central Maputo about two weeks ago. Another vehicle drew up beside him and two men thrust AK-47 assault rifles out of the windows and sprayed Silica’s car with bullets. It was estimated that 30 bullets hit him.
Nobody saw the killers open any of the doors of his car.
According to media in Maputo, his personal documents were found by a passer-by, who recognised the name of their owner, and contacted traffic police who were on patrol nearby.
He also contacted the newspaper, Noticias, which sent a team to Machava, and photographed the documents confirming they had belonged to Silica.
Silica had been investigating the wave of kidnappings that had hit major Mozambican cities since late 2011, and it is believed that this may have been the motive for his assassination.
