Carlos São Vicente – the main victim of Eduarda Rodrigues

Paris, October 16, 2024

Carlos São Vicente did not negotiate with prosecutor Eduarda Rodrigues and therefore remains in prison. 

The Attorney General’s Office had barely declared the legality of Carlos São Vicente’s activity and the provenance of his money, following an investigation and response to a rogatory letter from the Swiss authorities in August 2020, when prosecutor Eduarda Rodrigues, the following month, without any new evidence, rushed to seize almost all his assets in Angola. The hunt for its assets was launched.

Carlos de São Vicente was eventually arrested on September 22, 2020. Two weeks later, on October 6, in the Viana Prison, he received an unexpected visit from the prosecutor Eduarda Rodrigues, who did not notify the constituted lawyers for this purpose. She refused Carlos São Vicente the right to be assisted by his lawyers in this act, for reasons that will be easily understood. At that meeting, without preambles, she demanded from Carlos de São Vicente the delivery of all his assets to the State. Carlos de São Vicente refused, claiming that the assets belonged to him and that he had obtained it legally through years of work, savings and investment. Eduarda Rodrigues continued with threats and blackmail: that if he did not surrender he would be tried and convicted for many years. Carlos de São Vicente remained adamant, with a clear conscience that he had not committed any crime.

This illegal action of the prosecutor was denounced throughout the process but was not given relevance. 

After the assets were seized, prosecutor Eduarda Rodrigues decided to distribute them to various state services, when there was not even an indictment in the process. Another illegal act denounced but ignored by the competent judicial bodies.

The process took place and ended as prosecutor Eduarda Rodrigues had threatened, with a conviction fabricated with the most flagrant and shocking violations of the law.

After serving more than half of his sentence, it would be expected that Carlos São Vicente would finally be released. But no; the services of the Ministry of the Interior and the courts ignored the deadlines, as if they were respecting a perverse agenda, so that so far there has not even been an assessment, which is legally mandatory, of granting provisional release. 

Carlos São Vicente did not give in, did not confess, did not hand over the assets he built in decades of a legal and transparent career; therefore, he is the only defendant in the known media cases who is in prison; imprisoned not only for an unjust conviction, but beyond the deadlines that the law grants to be returned to freedom, even if provisional.  The threat of prosecutor Eduarda Rodrigues continues to be fulfilled.

Carlos São Vicente is an ailing person, with several illnesses that determine a high risk of death and has survived several acute crises. The state rejected all requests for release based on his proven critical state of health. 

He lives on a meagre retirement pension with which he meets the basic needs of food and health that prison does not provide him. All the family’s assets were confiscated, so that the family members were also abruptly deprived of their assets and income.

The arrest of Carlos São Vicente is considered illegal by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, of the United Nations Human Rights Council, according to Opinion No. 63.2023, of November 14, 2023, which urged the Angolan Government to release him immediately. 

The time has come to restore justice and release Carlos de São Vicente, out of respect for this Opinion, for humanitarian reasons related to his serious state of health and meet the legal requirements for granting provisional freedom.