The son of Mozambique’s former president Armando Guebuza on Monday denied allegations he took bribes to facilitate a $2bn (£1.4bn) secret government loan that plunged the southern African country into financial crisis.
Ndambi Guebuza is among 19 high-profile defendants facing trial in a high security prison in the capital, Maputo, over alleged links to a 2013 corruption case known as the “hidden debt” scandal.
He is accused of receiving $33m from an international shipbuilding group, Privinvest, to convince his father, who was president at the time, to approve corrupt maritime projects.
In 2013 and 2014, three public companies secured $2bn in state-guaranteed loans from international banks to buy a tuna-fishing fleet and surveillance ships, which they contracted to Privinvest.
An independent audit later found that $500m of the loans, which were kept hidden from parliament, remain unaccounted for.
Privinvest has previously denied wrongdoing.
Wearing a black coat over his orange prison uniform, Mr Ndambi was the third suspect to testify on Monday, one week after the trial started.
“I have never received money from Privinvest,” he told judges, saying he had no knowledge of emails presented in court as evidence of his involvement.
He also denied meeting Antonio Carlos do Rosario, a former director of Mozambique’s intelligence unit and head of the three state-owned groups, during a 2012 trip to Privinvest shipyards in Germany and Abu Dhabi.
“I went to visit a petrochemical company… [to] hear business opportunities,” he said.
He said that communication details extracted from his laptop and documents with his signature, “may have been forged”.
His 78-year-old father attended the hearing in a grey suit and blue shirt, occasionally taking notes.
The loan scandal surfaced in 2016, prompting donors such as the International Monetary Fund to cut off financial support, triggering sovereign debt default and currency collapse.
Mr Ndambi was arrested in February 2019.
The son of Mozambique’s ex-president and 18 others have gone on trial over the $2bn (£1.5bn) “tuna bonds” affair.
Ndambi Guebuza, son of former President Armando Guebuza, and the others face charges of blackmail, embezzlement and money laundering.
They have not yet commented on the charges.
Mozambique’s biggest corruption scandal led donors including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cut funding for the country and the economy to collapse. -BBC