Luanda, ANGOLA, February 20 - The Migration and Foreigners Service (SME) on Tuesday regretted the incident involving the Angolan MP, Manuel Rabelais, which prevented the later from leaving the country on January 24. ,

Speaking in a press conference on the fringes of the meeting of the National Security Council, the SME director-general, Gil Famoso, considered the event a regrettable incident and admitted that the agents on duty did not manage quite well the information they had available.

 

Gil Famoso added that the Home Affairs minister, Ângelo da Veiga Tavares, has already apologized to the MP.

 

“It is frequent the exchange of information between the General Attorney Office (PGR), the SME and other public security services on the limitation and travel interdiction of any citizen”, said the SME official.

 

According to the SME official, these institutions had available information of the existence of a writ of summons from the General Attorney Office to the MP.

 

In that specific case, explained the official, we should have alerted the MP for the possibility to postpone the travel or make it within a short-term period, providing that his presence in PGR was expected on January 29.

 

The former Mass Media minister and current MP was prevented from leaving to Portugal by the migratory authorities at Luanda’s 04 de Fevereiro International Airport.

 

On the occasion, it had been alleged that the MP did not have authorization by the National Assembly to leave the country.   

 

In the meantime, Manuel Rabelais’s immunity in the capacity of an MP does not prevent him from being notified or defendant in a crime process.

 

Manuel Rabelais was summoned to respond a process back to the time he was director of the Office for the Revitalization of Institutional Communication and Administration Marketing (Grecima), from 2012 to 2017.

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