Isabel dos Santos was arrested only after ″ exhausting all procedures ″

The Attorney General of the Republic of Angola, Hélder Pitta Grós, said this Friday that justice wants to exhaust all procedures to notify Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos before requesting an international arrest warrant.

“First we will exhaust the possibility of notifying you: if it is not in Portugal it will be in the United Kingdom [onde também tem residência]. We will exhaust these possibilities so that we can then evaluate the application of another measure “, said Pitta Grós, in an interview with the Lusa agency, the day after he was received by his Portuguese counterpart, who asked for help in notifying the defendants in a case of mismanagement of the oil company Sonangol.

The businesswoman will have been in Lisbon on Thursday and continues with total freedom of movement, something that Pitta Grós considers normal, taking into account the stage of the process.

“With regard to his movements, we can do nothing, because there are no coercive measures in the context of the criminal process. Only after she is questioned can a coercive measure be applied or not,” he said.

For now, Interpol has not yet been contacted by Luanda nor has an international arrest warrant been requested.

“[Primeiro], we must comply with procedural assumptions. She has not yet been notified of this order, “explained the prosecutor, adding that only if he does not” show up for this interrogation “will he” have to go this route “.

For now, international judicial cooperation will be requested to notify the businesswoman who has a Russian passport: “We will have to go to countries where there are interests in this process, interest in notifying [Isabel dos Santos], interest in possible investments or money that illegally went to those countries “.

The businesswoman has claimed that she was never notified and complains that the Angolan justice system is being selective in the targets of corruption investigations, something that Hélder Pitta Grós rejects.

Isabel dos Santos “was not notified [em Luanda] because she did not leave the house to meet the agent who went to notify her “and sent the” maid to answer “who” signed “the court note, said the prosecutor, ensuring that the authorities are acting impartially in this case.

“Angolan justice is selective because it will only act against those who have committed illicit acts,” he warned.

The case was revealed by an international consortium of journalists, which integrates Expresso and SIC, and points out several suspicions about transfers of money from Sonangol to a consultant from Isabel dos Santos, when the businesswoman was an administrator of the oil company.

For now, promises the Angolan attorney general, Isabel dos Santos is not in danger of being arrested.

In addition to Isabel dos Santos, Portuguese defendants in this case are businesswoman Paula Oliveira and manager Mário Leite da Silva and that was the request that Luanda made on Thursday to the Portuguese Attorney General (PGR).

On Thursday, the Angolan attorney general delivered a rogatory letter to the Lisbon authorities to notify Portuguese defendants: “I think this will be immediately enforced by the PGR”, with “all possible speed”.

“The first requirement is that all those involved citizens living in Portugal are notified, that they are notified of their status as defendants before a date can be set for interrogation,” said Pitta Grós, who will soon return to Luanda.

At the meeting with the Portuguese PGR, Pitta Grós did not clarify whether he asked for the opening of actions to seize the assets of the businesswoman in Portugal.

“I think it is not a good tone for me, as a visitor, to be saying what I talked about at the house of the one who invited me. It would be good to be her saying something about this”, she just said the Angolan PGR.

Hélder Pitta Grós also declined to comment on the lack of action by the Portuguese authorities in banking operations that indicated a lack of transparency, such as transfers of millions of dollars to tax havens, via Eurobic bank, in which Isabel dos Santos was a shareholder.

“I cannot regret or fail to regret” the action of the Portuguese authorities, he added.

* Agência Lusa

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