The Constitutional Court in Angola has overturned a five-year sentence slammed on the son of former President José Eduardo dos Santos over fraud allegations.
Courts slammed José Filomeno dos Santos in 2020 for his involvement in illegal transfer of $500million from Angola’s Sovereign Fund to a private account in the UK.
In a ruling published on Thursday, the Constitutional Court declared his conviction as “unconstitutional”, because it breached “the principles of legality, adversarial proceedings, a fair and consistent judgement and the rights of the defence”.
The former leader’s son, also known as Zenu, was the head of Angola’s Sovereign Wealth Fund from 2013 to 2018.
He was sentenced alongside the former governor of Angola’s national bank and three others.
The transfer of the money was agreed in 2017, in the last few weeks before his father stood down as president after 38 years.
José Eduardo dos Santos was president from 1979 until he resigned in 2017, to be replaced by Joao Lourenço, the man he had handpicked for the job.