The former chief executive and chief financial officer of LAM - Linhas Aéreas de Moçambique (TM, Maputo) were sentenced to 14 years in prison on embezzlement charges at Maputo City Judicial Court on March 24, according to the Lusa news agency.
The majority-state-owned carrier's former CEO, António Pinto, and his then CFO, Helder Júlio da Silva Fumo, were arrested on October 22 last year by Mozambique's anticorruption watchdog (Gabinete Central do Combate à Corrupção - GCCC).
The court additionally sentenced Mia Temporário, a director of Executive Moçambique, a company that managed Indico, LAM’s inflight magazine, to 12 years, also for embezzlement.
The three were also ordered to pay MZN31 million meticals (USD464,000) in compensation to the Mozambican state, divided three ways for each defendant.
The court found that Pinto, Fumo, and Temporária diverted a total of MZN50 million (USD748,000) through service contracts signed between LAM and Executive Moçambique for work that was not carried out. The contracts had been intended to try to reverse the negative image of the Mozambican flag carrier, which in April 2011 was banned from flying in European airspace due to a poor safety record.
Judge Rui Dauane said it had been proven during the trial that Pinto and Fumo had “forced the state, through their signatures, into two contracts whose value doubled in the second contract through tremendous financial effort to enrich a third party, in this case Executive Moçambique”.
Lawyers for the three defendants have said they will appeal against the convictions.
