The former head of the Angolan sovereign wealth fund, Jose Filomeno dos Santos, was placed in pre-trial detention on Monday (September 24th) by the prosecutor’s office in the context of a $ 1.5 billion embezzlement case. general.
In a statement the Attorney General, Alvaro Da Silva Joao, states that “due to the complexity and seriousness of the facts and in order to ensure the effectiveness of the investigation (…), the Public Prosecutor’s Office decided to apply defendants a measure of preventive detention “.
“The evidence gathered in the case is sufficient evidence that the defendants engaged in corrupt activities,” he added.
“The Angolan-Swiss businessman Jean-Claude Bastos de Morais, one of his relatives who managed part of the sovereign fund, was also placed in custody,” said the prosecutor in the document.
To come back to the details, it was last March that Jose Filomeno dos Santos, son of former President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, was indicted for ordering suspicious transfers while he was running the Angolan sovereign wealth fund. .
Until then under judicial control, Mr. dos Santos had promised to “collaborate” with the justice of his country.
As a reminder, he was appointed in 2013 by his father, President Jose Eduardo dos Santos, at the head of a sovereign fund created a year earlier and endowed with a capital of 5 billion dollars drawn from the oil wealth of country. Before being sacked from his post last January by the new president of Angola, Joao Lourenço.
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