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Angola's arrest warrant plans 'unjustified': Isabel dos Santos

By AFP
Angola Dos Santos says she's been ready to cooperate.  By MIGUEL RIOPA AFPFile
JUN 27, 2020 LISTEN
Dos Santos says she's been ready to cooperate. By MIGUEL RIOPA (AFP/File)

Angolan billionaire businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, suspected of corruption in her native country and Portugal, on Friday slammed as "unjustified" the possible issuing of an international arrest warrant against her.

The country's attorney general Helder Pitta Gros on Thursday said Luanda, working with Portugal, was mulling the possibility of issuing an arrest warrant.

Dos Santos, 47, described by Forbes as the wealthiest woman in Africa, is accused of diverting billions of dollars from state companies during her father Jose Eduardo dos Santos's near four-decade rule of the oil-rich African nation.

In a Facebook post on Friday, she stressed her "readiness to cooperate" with the Angolan and Portuguese courts -- through her lawyers -- but said she "has not received any specific request" in the case.

"So the intention by the attorney general's office to issue an international arrest warrant is manifestly unjustified," she said in the post.

She has strongly denied the allegations, describing them as "a coordinated political attack" devised by the Angolan government.

Last December, a civil court in Luanda issued a "preventative" order to freeze her business assets as part of a crackdown on graft by the former president's successor, Joao Lourenco.

A month later and after analysing a trove of more than 700,000 leaked documents, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) also accused her of looting state coffers.

Subsequently, Portugal froze her assets in that country, where she has invested mainly in banking and telecommunications.

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