Mozambique’s President Filipe Nyusi has been sucked into the country’s controversial bribery and illegal loans scandal amid allegations that he was one of the beneficiaries of the illicit transactions.
Privinvest announced on Thursday that it served Nyusi on October 19 with summons to appear before the British High Court in London in a case in which the Abu Dhabi-based shipbuilder is counter-suing the Mozambican government in a multi-billion-dollar government-guaranteed private loans scandal.
“Service on President Nyusi reflects the fact that he is a party to the London litigation,” Privinvest said in a statement.
It said the claims against Nyusi “relate to payments made for his benefit, including to fund his 2014 presidential-election campaign, and given that he was at the heart of the creation and the subsequent sabotaging of the projects in Mozambique.”
The latest development follows a May 2021 order in which Britain’s High Court granted Privinvest permission to file a lawsuit against Nyusi.
The case relates to government-guaranteed loans raised in 2013 and 2014 for projects, including a tuna-fishing fleet, for which Privinvest was the sole contractor.
Mozambican officials say hundreds of millions of dollars went missing, some in kickbacks and bribes.
Mozambique filed a lawsuit against Privinvest in London in 2019 seeking the recovery of loans, and compensation. That case and several others, including a separate suit against Credit Suisse and any counterclaims, have been combined into a single case, which will now also include the personal claim against Nyusi.
The Mozambican government is yet to comment on the latest development.
Nyusi is expected to file an acknowledgment of service, an admission, or a defence within 23 days of receiving the summons.
JN/APA