Rio de Janeiro, November the 25th 1993.

Dear Sir,

1. Following the telegram that yesterday our office in Lisbon had the honour of sending to you, we also inform you that this office in Rio de Janeiro is at the entire disposition in order to receive any message whatsoever that you may think wise to send to our client SOUTHERN STAR LTDA.

2. Please receive our very best regards.

ASSIS DE ALMEIDA ADVOGADOS, SCP

JOSÉ A. ASSIS DE ALMEIDA

Av. Rio Branco, 109, 21º andar

Rio de Janeiro, RJ

Tel.: (021) 224.5985 Fax: (021) 252.2301

1. We address ourselves to you ….. in the quality of lawyers of the SOUTHERN STAR LTD..
2. To be true, on February the 27th 1991, the headquarters of our constituent in Luanda was robbed.
3. During the assault our Manager, CAROLINA DE FÁTIMA DA SILVA FRANCISCO, was brutally raped by all the housebreakers, and in the end she was killed, also in a brutal way, by one of the housebreakers, in the presence and under the applause of all the others.
4. During the assault, was also murdered the guard that, at the time was in charge of the guarding service of the headquarters of the enterprise.
5. The housebreakers still robbed several values and have ransacked all the building.
6. Our constituent has opportunely participated these facts in Luanda, to the competent Police Authorities.
7. And as far as our constituent believes to know, the respective criminal proceeding was instituted.
8. However, surprisingly the criminal proceeding never had a normal legal procedures.
9. On the contrary, the Policial Authorities unaccountably didn’t practice any of the acts of preparatory regulation which should have been practiced.
10. Nor have the Policial Authorities of Luanda ever accepted, or even shown any interest whatsoever in receiving the cooperation that our constituent as always offered in order to discover the truth in these horrendous crimes.
11. However, in view of all this inertia of the Policial Authorities of Angola, to whom concerns the regulation of the crime, our constituent has decided – technically assisted by the group of lawyers’s offices which patronize its interests in different countries – to unleash a set of joint actions of the criminal facts, of the circumstances in which the same have occurred and of its authors, accomplices, etc..
12. And our constituent has obtained success in these work.
13. In such a way that our constituent has already knowledge of the circumstances in which the crimes were practiced, the same ways it knows its respective authors.
14. According to the proof elements collected, the authors, both of the deaths, of the rape, and of the robbery and ransack are public agents serving directly in that Presidency or with positions of first line in Ministries of the Government of Angola.
15. In the group of authors of the criminal facts can be found, alias according to elements in the possession of our constituent, public agents which have been send abroad with Mr.President of the Republic or Ministers of the State in officials trips.
16. When finding who the responsibles for these crimes are, our constituent has understood the reason for the stoppage in the proceeding installed by the Policial Authorities of Luanda.
17. And it is supposed that the authors of the crimes have a great unjustified prestige in that Presidency and, for that reason, it would have been easy to them to shut down the Policial Authorities, some of them also convenient.
18. However, our constituent, in view of the respect it has and must have – in memory of its cooperators so brutally murdered, and in view of the obligation it has – doesn’t reject – to defend its patrimony, also so violently pillaged, is doing all the sacrifices in order to obtain the punishment of the guilty ones.
19. Thus and as the first of the actions that planned to enterprise with this purpose, our constituent has decided to direct this communication to you.
20. And therefore our constituent has proceeded in that way, given the respect it has for you … Mr.President of the Republic of Angola and for you … Mr. Minister Head of the Civil House.
21. And because it trust that you … the President of the Republic now directly aware of these serious crimes practiced in the very capital of Angola and aware that – according to proof collected – the authors of the crimes are people connected with that Presidency and/or with the M.P.L.A. … it will commend that an adequate regulation of this criminal proceeding take place.
22. Finally we explain that our constituent continuous at the disposition of cooperating with the authorities of Angola.
23. But, in view of the enormous power that the authors officially and in fact possess in the Democratic Republic of Angola, our constituent doesn’t wish to send to Luanda none of the people that cooperated in the collection of the already gathered proves.
24. In the same way that our constituent thoughts to be very dangerous to try, at this very moment, to send to you … Mr. President of the Republic those elements of proof already collected.
25. In reality, and in view of the position of the authors of the crimes in that Presidency, it would be very easy to them to destroy those proves or even, who knows to organize adequate alibis, although false, but which could render more difficult the regulation of the criminal proceeding.
26. However, before starting, outside Angola, the adequate actions both at the judiciary level, and at the representation level with the International entities which may be interested in the defense of the human rights, our constituent is ready to find, together with you … Mr.President of the Republic or with you … an adequate way to render available and processually utilizable the determinant proof that it managed to gather.
27. To do so, our constituent awaits that you … mr.President of the Republic or you … inform it both through our office, here in Rio, or through the other lawyer offices located in other countries and that, if given the case, will contact you … during the next days, that there is personal interest – apart, obviously, of the functional interest – that justice should be done in this case.
28. We present to you our highest consideration.