JOHANNESBURG — Angolan authorities are seeking to arrest Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of the former president who was once considered Africa’s richest woman, on charges she enriches herself with state resourcesthe country’s attorney general has told a state news agency.
The attorney general, Hélder Pitta Grós, told the Angop outlet on Monday that Angola was seeking to arrest Ms dos Santos, the former director of the state oil company, through Interpol, after the location was not determined. hers and did not receive. response from her or her attorney to many of the requests she made for questioning.
Related issues “red notice,” is asking law enforcement agencies around the world to find and detain a person. As of Tuesday morning, there are no notices about Ms. dos Santos listed in Interpol’s online database.
The attempt to arrest Ms. dos Santos comes after years of investigation by Angolan authorities into the vast wealth she amassed when her father, José Eduardo dos Santos, who died in julyis the president.
Her father’s 38-year tenure in office was marked by numerous allegations of corruption; he resigned in 2017 and his handpicked successor, João Lourenço, became president.
Lourenço vowed to fight corruption and his government soon targeted the children of his predecessor. José Filomeno dos Santos, son of the former president, was sentenced to five years in prison in 2020 for embezzling $500 million from Angolan government funds. (He remains free while the case is being appealed.)
Ms. dos Santos has been closely monitored for years by the attorney general’s office in Angola, an oil-rich country in southern Africa. half of the population live on less than $1.90 a day.
January 2020, Mr. Pitta Grós saying that dos Santos will be charged with “money laundering, influence trading, harmful management” and “forgery of documents, among other economic crimes” he said she committed while running Sonangol, the oil company government.
Mr. Pitta Grós said the investigation was prolonged in part because Ms. dos Santos did not live in Angola. She has homes in London and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, among other places.
In his statement to Angop on Monday, Mr. Pitta Grós said that Ms. dos Santos did not respond to letters requesting her to appear for questioning, which were sent to her lawyers and to Her home is in the Angolan capital Luanda and in the Netherlands. . “Her current whereabouts are unknown,” he said.
Contacted by phone this month, dos Santos said she is always ready to report to the authorities. She said that she and her legal team had not received any notice of her arrest and could not find any notice for her in Interpol’s database.
“My address is known, my whereabouts are known,” she said, adding that she currently lives in London. “I am not a fugitive. “I am not hiding from anyone,” she added.
She said, if a notice or arrest warrant were issued, she would be willing to go to court to provide evidence that she had never stolen state resources and that her companies were legally built and financed by banks.
She said the investigations and charges against her were Mr Lourenço’s “political persecution”. “He sees me as a political threat and a potential presidential candidate,” she said.
Even as allegations of corruption and nepotism have tarnished her father dos Santos’ reputation, his name carries considerable weight because of his background in the resistance against the colonial regime of her father. the Angolans.
Some analysts see his death in July as an opportunity for his party, the People’s Movement for the Liberation of Angola, or MPLA, to turn the nostalgia surrounding his legacy into support. in the national elections, held in August.
Indeed the party has eke out a win, guaranteeing Mr. Lourenço a second term. But the MPLA had its worst performance ever, with Many voters are disappointed by the continued economic crisis and skeptical of Mr. Lourenço’s anti-corruption campaign.
Dos Santos’ fortune was once estimated at $3.5 billion by Forbes, calling her the richest woman in Africa. However, many of her assets around the world, including in Portugal and the Netherlands, have been frozen because of corruption allegations that have dogged her. Forbes estimates she is no longer a billionaire.
Gilberto Neto Contribution report from Luanda, Angola.
