Angola vows
to force return of Isabel dos Santos by 'all possible means'
Pledge
comes as former ruler’s daughter denounces Luanda Leaks investigation
Community
bulldozed at site of Isabel dos Santos ‘masterplan’
David Pegg
and Karen McVeigh
Mon 20 Jan
2020 17.28 GMTLast modified on Mon 20 Jan 2020 18.55 GMT
Dos Santos,
who left Angola in 2018 after her father stepped down as president, has denied
any wrongdoing.
The Angolan
government has vowed to use “all possible means” to force the return of Isabel
dos Santos following the Luanda Leaks investigation into how the ex-president’s
daughter accrued her $2bn fortune.
Angola’s
prosecutor general, Hélder Pitra Grós, said on Angolan public radio on Monday
that the country would use “all possible means and activate international
mechanisms to bring Dos Santos back to the country”.
Dos Santos
left Angola in 2018 after her father stepped down as president. She has denied
any wrongdoing.
In a string
of tweets after the Guardian and partners revealed the story behind her fortune
on Sunday, she denounced the Luanda Leaks investigation – based on 715,000
files from her business empire – claiming it was part of a concerted campaign
by the Angolan government to discredit her.
“The ICIJ
report is based on many fake documents and false information, it is a
coordinated political attack in coordinations with the ‘Angolan Government’.
715 thousand documents read? Who believes that? #icij #lies,” she tweeted,
referring to the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, of
which the Guardian is a partner.
Dos Santos
says her wealth is the result of hard work and business acumen rather than
state funds. “I build companies and enterprises, I invest and create jobs. This
where my wealth comes from: BUSINESSES,” she tweeted last night.”
At the
UK-Africa Investment Summit in London on Monday, attended by 21 African
countries, a member of the Angolan delegation denied Dos Santos’s descriptions
of the government’s actions as a “witch-hunt”.
António
Henriques da Silva, the president of the board of Aipex, Angola’s investment
agency, said: “There is a clear separation of judicial and executive powers. We
are reaching a point where people are sensitive towards transparency and good
governance and equal rights.”
Da Silva
said investors wanted to see the country was tackling practices that could be
perceived as unethical.
“This is a
person who took advantage of her position,” he alleged of Dos Santos. “If the
money was invested in the population, in people who do not have access to
education or health in Angola, it could save lives.”
In December
an Angolan court froze Dos Santos’s assets, accusing her of having benefitted
from preferential state deals under her father’s government.
Last week
she lost a defamation case in Portugal against Ana Gomes, an MEP who had
accused her of money laundering on Twitter. The court found Gomes’s right to
freedom of speech outweighed Dos Santos’s right to protect her reputation.
On Friday
the Portuguese newspaper Expresso reported that authorities in Monaco were
investigating her and her father for money laundering, citing an Angolan
official in contact with Interpol. Both she and her father, José Eduardo dos
Santos, have denied money laundering.
Anti-corruption
and financial transparency experts said the case highlighted the role of
professional services firms, such as accountants and consultants, in enabling
high-risk behaviour. The UK government has identified so-called professional
enablers as a law enforcement priority.
“Don’t let
anyone frame #LuandaLeaks as a story of ‘corruption’ in a poor country – just
like #ParadisePapers and all the rest, this is ultimately about failures of
international rules, and the corrupting influence of professional enablers,”
said Alex Cobham, the chief executive of the Tax Justice Network.
Susan
Hawley, executive director of the campaign group Spotlight on Corruption, said
it was “essential that the UK authorities act urgently” to identify Dos
Santos’s UK assets in anticipation of any possible request for assistance from
Angolan law enforcement.
Dos Santos
has properties in London and is said to spend a substantial amount of time in
the UK. A spokesperson for Britain’s National Crime Agency said: “The UK enjoys
a good working relationship with the Angolan attorney general’s office and
[has] supported a number of investigations where there has been a UK element to
their investigation.”
They said
they were unable to comment on the existence or otherwise of any investigation.
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