São Vicente case: PGR zigzags & maneuvers
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| January 30, 2002 | Sonangol’s Legal Office informs PGR (Attorney General’s Office) on the implementation of the risk management strategy for oil activities, describes its scope, legal grounds, AAA corporate group, Sonangol’s role and justification for its association with foreign companies. |
| April 7, 2020 | Swiss authorities (Canton of Geneva) deliver to the Angolan authorities a rogatory letter containing a detailed statement of the facts under investigation and requesting information on the legality of the activity of AAA SEGUROS S.A. |
| June 1, 2020 | PGR receives the rogatory letter from the Canton of Geneva and starts investigation. |
| August 7, 2020 | PGR concludes investigation and prepares a report accompanied by hundreds of supporting documents, concluding that there is no evidence of embezzlement, corruption, money laundering or any other crime. |
| August 13, 2020 | PGR sends the reply to the rogatory letter from the Canton of Geneva. |
| August 28, 2020 | The Swiss blog “Gotham City” reveals the existence of the investigation in Switzerland and the amount seized (information already known to PGR); media and some commentators echo this news in Angola. |
| September 8, 2020 | PGR starts a criminal proceedings in Angola against São Vicente |
| September 15, 2020 | First hearing of São Vicente by the PGR |
| September 22, 2020 | Continuation of hearing of São Vicente by the PGR |
| September 22, 2020 | At the end of the hearing, PGR imposes the pretrial detention of São Vicente and the information about the arrest is passed on to the press before being notified to São Vicente and his lawyer. |
| September 22, 2020 | The order that stipulates the pretrial detention refers in an abstract way to a “scheme for the appropriation of AAA company’s shareholdings, income and profits”, without referring to concrete facts and without substantiating the alleged illegality of the transfer of shares: besides, it states that the transfer was not authorized by the Sonangol’s Board of Directors, which is contrary to what the file documents demonstrate. |
| October 6, 2020 | Two SENRA (National Service of Assets Recovery) prosecutors visited São Vicente in prison to convince him, using intimidation, to hand over his assets to the State. This visit was not previously announced and São Vicente lawyers could not be present. |
| October 10, 2020 | PGR’s reply, dated August 13, to the rogatory letter of the Canton of Geneva (Switzerland), in which the inexistence of evidence of any crimes committed by São Vicente is disclosed to the press. Up to this point, PGR had hidden the existence of this reply to the rogatory letter. |
| October 14, 2020 | A spokesperson for the PGR confirms the authenticity of the reply to the rogatory letter and states that the file was initiated due to new evidence that the PGR did not have in August. He added that Angola had sent a rogatory letter to the Canton of Geneva and that a PGR emissary had obtained new evidence from Switzerland. However, the swiss lawyers of São Vicente clarified that there is no such rogatory letter from the angolan authorities nor could any evidence have been provided by the means described, which would be contrary to Swiss law. The truth is that between the date of sending a reply to the Swiss rogatory letter (August 13, 2020) and the date of the opening of the case against São Vicente (September 8, 2020), the PGR did not obtain any new evidence. |
| November 30, 2020 | Jornal de Angola, a daily newspaper owned by the State, announces that the PGR has a plan in order for Angolan prosecuting authorities to benefit from the seized assets. |
| December 1, 2020 | Jornal de Angola publishes an announcement of the list of assets allegedly recovered by PGR, which includes assets belonging to São Vicente and seized in this proceedings in violation of the principle of presumption of innocence. |
| March 8, 2021 | The chairman of IGAPE (Institute of State Assets and Shares Management), the trustee appointed by the PGR of the corporate shares seized in the case, publicly declares that, in coordination with the Ministry of Finance, the final destination of these shares has been decided, detailing that the State will keep part of them and privatize most of them through the Stock Exchange. The defense of São Vicente protests against the violation of the principle of presumption of innocence. |
| March 18, 2021 | The file is sent by the PGR to court. |
| April 1, 2021 | SENRA sends a letter to the trustee CGJ (Justice General Safe) with instructions for “allocation” to various public bodies of properties seized in the file. On that date, the case was already under the jurisdiction of a judge, the only entity that would have the power to authorize acts of the trustee. |
| In the following months, there were several other acts of illicit distribution of real estate by the CGJ in favor of various public bodies, on instructions from SENRA, without competence or powers for that purpose and in violation of the principle of presumption of innocence. | |
| May 10, 2021 | During the contradictory hearing, the PGR requests and the judge decides that São Vicente cannot be represented by the lawyer he has appointed, on the basis that this lawyer signed public deeds 20 years ago on behalf of companies of which São Vicente was the beneficial owner. |
| Against that decision an appeal and other proceedings were filed but are still pending. Consequently São Vicente was unlawfully deprived of being represented by his lawyer at the trial. |
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