The killings of Elvino Diaz and Paulo Kwambe in Maputo on Friday night were “obviously, a crime of a political nature,” asserts Expresso Pedro Esteves, managing partner of the Africa Monitor consultancy. The reports come in line with Mozambican party leader Podemos (who believes the two were “killed for political reasons”) and the European Union (“politically motivated killings have no place in a democracy”). and the Community of Portuguese-Speaking Countries in Mozambique – João Cravinho, the former Portuguese minister who headed the CPLP’s electoral monitoring mission (the double murder cannot be separated from the “electoral process”), among others.
Presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane’s legal adviser Elvino Diaz and Podemos party representative Paulo Kwambe were shot dead on Avenida Joaquim Chisano in the center of Maputo. Ambush by armed men to the vehicle they were both traveling in after 11pm local time (minus 1 hour in Lisbon).
However, the police of the Republic of Mozambique consider Pedro Esteves “in a caricature way” – a crime of passion, which points to the presence of a woman in the vehicle (injured, “without danger to life”) and “a discussion arising from matrimonial matters”, which “will follow later”. “It is clearly murder, not a crime of passion.”, declares the managing partner of Africa Monitor.
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