The lawyer for Isabel dos Santos, a rich person from Angola, says that the new criminal charges against her are motivated by politics.
Angola’s top lawyer has accused Ms Dos Santos of doing 12 bad things, like stealing money and lying, according to reports.
Ms Dos Santos is being accused of doing something wrong when she was in charge of a government-owned oil company.
Ms Dos Santos was in charge of Sonangol, the richest woman in Africa. She ran the company from 2016 to 2017.
She is the daughter of the ex-president of Angola, José Eduardo dos Santos, who ruled the country for 38 years until he stopped in 2017.
Critics say Ms. Dos Santos used her power in Angola to make herself rich, but she denies it.
In reply to the charges from last week, Isabel dos Santos’ lawyer, Dan Morrison, said to the media that she denies the charges and believes they were made by the Angolan government to harm her because of President João Lourenço.
During Mr Lourenço’s presidency, some of José Eduardo Dos Santos’ family members have been accused of different crimes but they say they didn’t do it.
In 2020, Angolan prosecutors accused Ms Dos Santos of stealing and illegally using money.
The international police agency Interpol put out a “red notice” for the billionaire in 2022, telling police around the world to find and temporarily arrest her.
Ms Dos Santos has not been taken by the police since they started looking into her, but her money and things she owns have been frozen in many places.
“Isabel’s lawyer, Mr. Morrison, said she is currently dealing with legal cases in different places to prove her innocence. ”
“The Angolan authorities are trying to scare her so she can’t come back to Angola and run for political office. ”
Ms Dos Santos was recently charged with a crime on 11 December, according to the Portuguese news agency Lusa. The Angolan attorney general’s office said they couldn’t talk about it because it’s a secret legal matter.
Ms Dos Santos has talked about running for president of Angola in different media interviews in the last few years.
She has been called the richest woman in Africa before, and it is said she has about $2 billion. Her name is not on the list of the richest people in the world by Forbes anymore because her money and property are being argued about in different places.