VI. Individuals Arrested for Security Crimes since September 2007

Officially, since the MOU in 2006, the Angolan government has denied the continued existence of an armed FLEC guerrilla movement. Senior FAA and police officials explained to Human Rights Watch in March 2008 that those people who were arrested for national security crimes were “bandits who oppose development,”[4] or “people who still identify with FLEC, seeking to call attention to compromise the government’s cooperation with countries and companies.”[5] Bento Bembe—former FLEC Renovada and FCD leader and current minister without portfolio—explained to Human Rights Watch in March 2009 that “those people cannot be from the FLEC, because I represent the guerrillas.”[6] However, the cases documented in this report clearly contradict this claim, as many of the charges in the cases refer to alleged involvement in concrete acts of armed insurgency. Court records also often explicitly refer to alleged cooperation with FLEC-FAC.

Between September 2007 and March 2009, at least 38 persons, including six members of the Angolan Armed Forces, (see list in Annex) were arrested by military and intelligence agents for alleged “crimes against the security of the State,” including armed rebellion and sabotage, and other crimes relating to the armed FLEC insurgency in Cabinda, such as homicide, illegal possession of arms, and desertion. The Angolan law on crimes against the security of the state from 1978, which allows for up to 215 days pre-trial detention,[7] includes an overly broad and ambiguous range of offenses: “Every and any act, not provided for by law, that endangers or may endanger the security of the State...”[8]

All 38 detainees were initially held in military custody for long periods—from 26 days to six months—before being transferred to the civilian prison at Yabi in Cabinda and brought either before a prosecutor or to be formally charged or before a judge.[9] So far, two trials have taken place, as a result of which seven persons were convicted and four were acquitted.

The 38 individuals targeted, arrested and charged can roughly be grouped into three categories:

1. Fernando Lelo and co-accused FAA members

The Angolan Armed Forces in September 2007 arrested six FAA personnel: António Santos Nguimbi (soldier), Lourenço Ila Dembe (soldier), Alberto Suami (1st sergeant), Alberto João Chimbinda (soldier), Basílio Muanda (1st corporal), and Custódio Nguimbi Sumbo (1st sergeant). Their arrests led to the November 15, 2007 arrest of former Voice of America (VOA) journalist José Fernando Lelo by the Angolan military at his workplace in the oil compound of Malongo.

All of these men were eventually charged with having organized or carried out three armed attacks between December 2006 and July 2007; the FAA members were additionally charged with having committed military crimes such as desertion.[10] Lelo and the six were put on trial before the Cabinda military court from May 5 to June 11, 2008 and convicted on September 16, 2008. Lelo was sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment. Five of the co-accused were sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment. Custódio Nguimbi Sumbo was acquitted. Lelo and the five convicted military personnel are currently prisoners at Yabi prison in Cabinda, which Human Rights Watch visited, while an appeal against their conviction to the Supreme Military Court is pending.

Human Rights Watch and other organizations believe that Lelo was primarily targeted for arrest and conviction as a result of opinions he expressed as a VOA journalist until December 2006, which were perceived to be critical of the Angolan government and the 2006 Memorandum of Understanding.[11]

2. Persons Arrested in Rural Areas

Most of those who were arrested and charged with security crimes between January 2008 and March 2009 were residents of villages in the interior of Cabinda. The majority were arrested in groups during military raids, which followed armed attacks attributed to the FLEC separatist guerrilla movement in the municipalities of Buco Zau and Cacongo.[12]

So far, only five of those arrested—João Mateus Luemba, Elias Menos, Garcia David António, António Zau, and Natalício Mbatchi—were tried by the provincial civil court from March 24 to April 22, 2009. On May 7, the judge acquitted four of the accused for lack of evidence, while sentencing Mbatchi to 18 months in prison for illegal possession of arms. All five had been arrested in January 2008, over a year previously, and charged with “crimes against the security of the State” and related crimes. At that time, all were released from custody, including Mbatchi, who had already spent 17 months in pre-trial detention.

Local human rights activists told Human Rights Watch that more people have been arrested during such military raids and were later released from military custody without having been charged and presented to the public prosecutor.[13]

3. Former FLEC Members Arrested in the DRC and Cabinda

Seven detainees at Yabi prison interviewed by Human Rights Watch confirmed that they previously were FLEC members. Five had been living in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 2005 and 2006. They said that they had not been FLEC members since. They were arrested in different places in the DRC in October 2008 by the Congolese Agence Nationale de Renseignement (ANR) and later transferred to Angola. Two former FLEC members were also arrested in Cabinda in Dinge (Cacongo) and in Cabinda city in the same month. They alleged not having yet been formally charged with any crime.

Human Rights Watch also interviewed two registered refugees from Cabinda, including one former FLEC member now in Lisbon, Portugal, and the current Voice of America correspondent in Kinshasa, both of whom allege having been threatened with arrest and transfer to Angola in early 2008 and early 2009, respectively.[14] These firsthand accounts and secondary reports received by Human Rights Watch suggest a wider pattern of arrests of Cabindans in the DRC at the request of the Angolan authorities.