Gunmen chased down the lawyer for Mozambique’s leading opposition politician and a senior opposition official and fatally shot them in their car in the capital, their party said Saturday
Gunmen chased down the lawyer for Mozambique’s leading opposition politician and a senior opposition official and fatally shot them in their car late at night on a main avenue in the capital, their party said Saturday.
The killings came with tensions already high in the southern African country as it waits for the results of an election that has drawn more allegations of vote rigging and clamping down on dissent against the long-ruling governing party.
Elvino Dias, a lawyer and advisor to opposition presidential candidate Venancio Mondlane, was killed late Friday night by gunmen in two vehicles who riddled his car with bullets in the city of Maputo, the PODEMOS opposition party said.
Paulo Guambe, a senior member and the spokesperson for PODEMOS, also was in the car with Dias and died in the shooting, the party said in a statement.
The killings are “further clear evidence of the lack of justice that we are all subjected to,” PODEMOS said.
PODEMOS is a relatively new opposition party that challenged the 49-year rule of the Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) party in the Oct. 9 election. Although Mondlane ran for president as an independent, he was supported by PODEMOS. Mondlane, PODEMOS and other opposition parties have accused Frelimo of electoral fraud and rigging the election.
