Wednesday 19 December 2012

Ex Minister of Justice Lucia Lobato Convicted and Sentence Upheld by Court of Appeal

Ex-Minister Justice Lucia Lobato - convicted criminal and sentenced to 5 years for corruption.
In 2008 this newspaper exposed the corruption practices by the then Minister of Justice Lucia Lobato, in what is now known as the SMS Corruption scandal.  It even made it to Wikileaks here http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Timor_Leste_Minister_Lucia_Lobato_SMS_tenders.

In 2009 the then Minister retaliated against this newspaper with charges of criminal defamation that were eventually dropped.  Newspaper staff were put under movement restriction.

In 2011 the Minister was charged with corruption by the Prosecutor General and in recent months was convicted.  Even after being convicted the ex-Minister was allowed to travel abroad.

In recent days the ex-Minister appealed the the conviction and sentence of 3.5 year in prison.  This newspaper has now been able to obtain the Court of Appeal's decision that the Minister's conviction is valid, but it has increased the sentence from 3.5 years to 5 years.

This newspaper can confirm that today a high level PNTL official total Tempo Semanal that, "the arrest warrant for ex-Miinister of Justice Lucia Lobato has today been served and there are now negotiations underway for the ex-Minister of Justice to submit herself to prison.  Tempo Semanal observed some Journalist were present in Lobato's house and there were some Police officers on plain clothes seen around the area. For the full document from the Court of Appeal see here: 

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