MAPUTO – The businessman who was kidnapped in broad daylight last week, is safe and sound. Police clamped down on the location where he was being held and the perpetrators fled, leaving him behind.
Mr Hariche Arquissandas, managing director of the Hariche Group, was kidnapped last Tuesday in full view of one of the security cameras at his home. His neighbour and administrator of Moz Info on Facebook, Mr Carlos Carvalho, received the footage shortly after and uploaded it onto social media in an attempt to apprehend the perpetrators.
Also read: Kidnapping of Mozambican businessman caught on camera
On Wednesday he posted a media statement issued by the Police of the Republic of Mozambique (PRM), which read that they had identified the place where Arquissandas was being held. The kidnappers left moments before police raided the premises and Arquissandas was found. It is believed that the suspects had been tipped off in advance.
“As we know, they are clever people. It is not yet known how they got this information, but they knew that they had been discovered and fled moments before the police arrived,” said PRM spokesman Mr Orlando Mudumane during the force’s usual weekly briefing.
Arquissandas was held at a house in the Liberdade neighbourhood, on the outskirts of Maputo, about 10 kilometres from the city centre. Asked if one of the kidnappers was the owner of the house, Mudumane explained that the neighbours had said the owners had not been seen for three years, and that a young man lived there.
Mudumane added that the force was still actively working to arrest the abductors. Carvalho yesterday said that there was nobody at Arquissandas’ house in Bairro Tri Unso in Costa do Sol. “In my opinion, I don’t think they (the family) will return to the house. They will relocate to another country as soon as possible,” he said.
He added that Arquissandas’ safe return was dominating the newsfront in Mozambique. People were wondering and speculating about how the kidnappers had managed to evade arrest. “I like the police’s explanation: ‘The police surrounded the house but they escaped via the back door. I presume that part of the house was not surrounded,”
Ms Natalia Bettencourt commented on Moz Info.
Three other businessmen were kidnapped in Maputo in October. One of them, the owner of an off-licence in the upmarket Polana neighbourhood, is still in the hands of his kidnappers after more than 40 days.
Maputo has been plagued with a wave of kidnappings since 2012, peaking in 2013. Since 2014, several people have been convicted of kidnapping, a crime punishable with a maximum 20-year jail term.
