The Mozambican Human Rights League (LDH) accused the...

The Mozambican Human Rights League (LDH) accused the police of carrying out summary executions of detainees in the country. LDH chairperson Alice Mabota told a press conference detainees were quietly removed from the police stations or prisons and executed by police officers or the death squads. She alleged that on 1 November, four young men detained at a police station in the suburb of Liberdade, in the southern city of Matola, were taken out and shot dead around Ndlavela, in Matola. The official police version was that the four were "shot while trying to escape," said Mabota, who named the four men as Estevao Muinga, Justino Mate, Francisco Cintura and Antonio Bene. Mabota said the alleged executions had been condemned by relatives of the four men. She said the police gave contradictory reports on the deaths -- to the LDH, they said the four died in an abortive escape attempt, but to the relatives they said the men were shot while trying to raid a shop in central Maputo. "It's not true that they died while trying to escape or while robbing shops. These young men were executed. "Summary detentions are still a way of eliminating or silencing detainees. This is a phenomenon that has no explanation," Mabota charged. She claimed that in 2002, the LDH recorded 30 summary executions, but she gave no names or dates.