The defamation trial of a prominent Angolan journalist who has accused a group of generals and company executives of involvement in brutality and human rights abuses in the country’s diamond mines has been adjourned after the prosecution announced a slew of additional charges against him.



Rafael Marques de Morais, 43, had been due to face nine charges of criminal defamation when he appeared in court in the Angolan capital, Luanda, on Tuesday morning.

But after a long delay, his lawyers were told that he now faced a further 15 libel charges arising from the publication of his 2012 book, Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola, which detailed more than 100 killings and hundreds of cases of torture carried out by security guards and members of the Angolan army against local people and small-scale miners in the diamond fields of the Cuango region.

Following disclosure of the new charges, Marques tweeted: “I went to court today facing nine charges of criminal defamation. I left slapped with up to 15 additional ones for defamation. Speechless!”

The judge’s decision to hold proceedings in camera – behind closed doors, with the press and public excluded – prompted scuffles outside the court between the journalist’s supporters and police, according to Agence France-Presse. It said several protesters, some of whom carried placards and shouted slogans such as “Free Rafael” and “Jail the generals”, were arrested.

After a day of legal argument, the judge adjourned the case until 23 April to give Marques’s lawyers time to prepare their case in light of the new charges. If found guilty, he could face nine years in prison and a libel bill for £800,000.

Marques has alleged that the generals and company directors were complicit in the violence because they were profiting from blood diamonds and did nothing to stop the bloodshed.



This week I may be jailed for writing a book on human rights abuses Read more

His decision to file criminal complaints against the generals for their “moral responsibility” in the affair led them and their associates to bring a libel suit against Marques in Portugal, Angola’s former colonial ruler. The Lisbon public prosecution office, however, dismissed the case two years ago because of lack of evidence.

The generals and their fellow complainants are now pursuing the journalist through the Angolan courts.

When Marques and his counsel arrived in court on Tuesday, they were told that the new charges related not to the complaints he filed against the generals and executives, but to allegations made in his book.

Marques, who has run his investigative website Maka Angola from his tiny kitchen for seven years, has been imprisoned before for branding Angola’s president, José Eduardo dos Santos, a dictator. Marques spent 43 days locked up without charge in 1999, going for days at a time without food or water in solitary confinement.



The journalist has described the legal situation as “Kafkasesque”. In a speech last week as joint winner of the Index on Censorship’s freedom of expression in journalism award, Marques said the trial would make him stronger.

He later told the Observer: “It will show Angolans there is nothing to fear and challenge them to hold the authorities to account.”