MOZAMBIQUE

JANUARY 27, 2005
Posted: February 2, 2005

Jeremias Langa, STV

THREATENED

Two men commandeered Langa’s car in the capital, Maputo, forced him to drive around the city for a half hour, held guns to his head, and threatened to kill him, according to a statement from the private television station STV, where Langa works as news director. CPJ sources said they believed the attack was linked to Langa’s journalistic work, which sometimes covers corruption.
The state-owned AIM news agency reported that the men told Langa he was “a journalist who talks too much, and you’re going to get a lesson to shut you up.” They also told Langa, “you’re going to die like Carlos Cardoso,” according to AIM and local sources. The assailants then ejected Langa from the car and drove off.
Cardoso, then Mozambique’s leading investigative journalist, was gunned down in November 2000 for his aggressive coverage of a 1996 corruption scandal involving the state-controlled Commercial Bank of Mozambique.
According to Alfredo Libombo, director of the local chapter of the Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA), Langa had received several previous death threats and believed that he was being followed.