Top lawyer gunned down in Maputo

It’s a macabre act, which government

condemns

MAPUTO: One of Mozambique’s most prominent constitutional lawyers, Gilles Cistac, has been assassinated by unknown gunmen in central Maputo.

Cistac, who taught at the law faculty of Eduardo Mondlane University, was shot yesterday morning as he got into a taxi, after four men in another vehicle had pulled up alongside and opened fire.

He had been having coffee at a snack bar when he called for a taxi to take him to the Administrative Tribunal (the body responsible for checking the legality of state expenditure).

After being shot, Cistac crawled out of the cab and collapsed.

Bystanders rushed him to hospital, where doctors were unable to save him. He had been hit by at least three bullets and had severe injuries to the thorax and abdomen.

When news of the attack reached President Filipe Nyusi, he interrupted the weekly meeting of the Council of Ministers (cabinet) he was chairing to discuss the shooting. Presidential spokesman Antonio Gaspar said Nyusi had instructed the Ministry of the Interior to hunt down and arrest those responsible as quickly as possible.

He described the shooting as “a macabre act, which the government condemns vehemently”.

The motive for the assassination is unknown, but it is being connected to the libellous and hatefilled campaign against Cistac waged in social media. Cistac had been accused of working for the main opposition party, the former rebel movement Renamo.

He came under fire because he argued that the constitution would allow the creation of the “autonomous provinces” called for by Afonso Dhlakama, the leader of Renamo.

Last week, Cistac announced that he would sue a man who had libelled him on Facebook. The man, “Calado Calachnicov”, called him a French spy and suggested he had obtained Mozambican nationality fraudulently. Cistac was a French citizen but acquired Mozambican nationality by naturalisation. – Foreign Service