Anrti-corruption watchdog authorities believe he will escape justice in Mozambique and should be sent to face trial in the US instead.
Mozambican anti-corruption watchdogs are scrambling to try to stop South Africa from extraditing former Mozambican finance minister Manuel Chang to Mozambique to face fraud, corruption and money laundering charges.
They believe he will escape justice in Mozambique and should be sent to face trial in the US instead.
Chang has been held in a South African jail since 29 December 2018 while the South African government decided whether to extradite him to Mozambique or to the US to stand trial for receiving millions of dollars of bribes in a $2.2-billion loan scam in 2013 and 2014.
Justice Minister Ronald Lamola finally confirmed on Monday that he had decided to send Chang home to Mozambique and not to the US. Lamola himself had in 2019 persuaded the Johannesburg High Court to overturn his predecessor Michael Masutha’s decision to extradite Chang to Mozambique.
But on Monday Lamola said circumstances had changed since then. In 2019 Chang still enjoyed immunity from prosecution as a member of Parliament and the Mozambique authorities had not yet indicted him in the corruption case.
“The court…