Luanda -The Constitutional Court (TC) declared the unconstitutionality of the ruling that condemned the former governor of the National Bank of Angola (BNA), Valter Filipe, and the former president of the Sovereign Fund, José Filomeno dos Santos.
The two, together with Jorge Gaudens Sebastião and António Bule Manuel, according to the TC decision sent this Thursday to ANGOP, were convicted in the second instance by the Supreme Court, for committing the crimes of embezzlement, fraud and influence peddling, all in continuous form, with sentences of five to eight years in prison.
The defendants were also ordered to pay a fine and compensation to the State in the amount of five million kwanzas as moral damages and eight million, 512 thousand and 500 US dollars, as lost profits and consequential damages.
The TC Ruling highlights that it declares unconstitutional the decision in Case no.135/20, also known as "Case 500 million", due to violation of the principles of legality, adversarial principle, fair trial and the right to defense.
Among the various arguments of the justices who signed the ruling it is the discarding of “relevant documentary evidence”. The TC ruling reminds that its decision is "unappealable" and puts an end to a process that has been going on since 2019, when
the case began to be judged. VIC/TED/jmc
