Maputo police chief shot dead

The head of police in Mozambique’s capital Maputo, Feliciano Juvane, was gunned down last night in what police today said they suspected may be the work of organised crime.

Juvane, director of order and security at the Maputo City Police Command, was ambushed by two armed men outside his home in a suburb of the city, police spokesperson Pedro Cossa told a press conference.

Juvane received a phone call shortly after arriving home from work and immediately went out of the house. The attackers fired on him in his vehicle and then fled the scene. Juvane died on the spot.

Cossa said police suspected the killing might be linked to the crackdown on criminal gangs operating in the city.

He refused however to speculate on a possible link to that the recent escape from a maximum-security prison in Maputo of three dangerous offenders, including the convicted killer of investigative journalist Carlos Cardoso, Anibal dos Santos Junior.

Police in Mozambique, a resource-rich but impoverished former Portuguese colony of 17 million people, have been increasingly in the line of fire over the past year.

Earlier this year, four police officers were killed in Maputo in a shootout with criminals they were chasing.
Source: The Times