A court in Mozambique has sentenced two former intelligence chiefs and the son of a former president to 12 years in prison in a massive corruption scandal known as the “hidden debt”.
The former head of intelligence and state security, Gregório Leão, and the former head of economic intelligence, António do Rosário, along with Armando Ndambi Guebuza, son of former president Armando Guebuza were sentenced by a special court in the capital, Maputo.
The case, which involved $2 billion in secret loans from foreign banks to Mozambican state-owned companies, had plunged the country into a serious financial crisis.
The case relates to debt contracted by the government in 2013 and 2014 without parliament approval that prompted the IMF to intervene, triggering a sovereign debt collapse in 2016.
