There is a need for South African Justice Minister Ronald Lamola to decide again whether to extradite former Mozambique finance minister Manuel Chang to the United States or send him back to his home country to answer corruption charges, a high court ruled on Friday.
The US government wants Chang in connection with allegations of conspiracy to commit fraud and taking millions of dollars in bribes in a US$2 billion loan scandal, APA has learnt.
The former minister was nabbed at Johannesburg’s OR Tambo Airport in December 2018 while in transit on his way to Dubai, and he has been in South African custody since his arrest.
While Mozambique had requested for his return to stand trial for the scandal, Washington has insisted that Chang should be tried in the US, saying Mozambique had known about this fraud but never acted on it.
The Gauteng High Court’s ruling on Friday comes after the court heard arguments on 16 October in an application Chang lodged to compel Lamola to implement his predecessor’s decision to extradite him to his home country – and not the United States.
But in a counter-application, Lamola asked that former Justice Minister Michael Masutha’s decision be reviewed and set aside on the basis that it was contrary to the provisions of this country’s extradition law.
During Masutha’s term, Chang faced extradition requests from both the US and Mozambique – where in the latter he enjoyed automatic immunity as a lawmaker – until it was lifted in January 2019.
It was during this period, when Chang was immune from prosecution, that Masutha decided to have Chang extradited to Mozambique – to the dismay of the United States.
Lamola has yet to respond to the court’s Friday ruling.
NM/jn/APA