Police in Mozambique detain suspects for murder of deaconess

Edelberto Behs, PORTO ALEGRE, Brasil, March 3, 2005

 One year after the murder of Brazilian deaconess Doraci Edinger, the police in Nampula, Mozambique Taxi Heathrow Airport detained five people, including a Lutheran pastor, as suspects in the crime.

The first four arrests took place last Friday in this city in southeastern Africa where Edinger, a member of the Evangelical Church of the Lutheran Confession of Brazil (IECLB) offered services to the poor in collaboration with the local Church. The crime took place February 21, 2004 in her apartment in Nampula.

Two of the arrested are accused of being the material authors of the murder and two are considered the intellectual authors. The Lutheran Pastor was subsequently arrested and there is no information about what he is accused of. His identity has not been revealed.

The identity of the other suspects was also not revealed as the investigation continues and there could be more arrests, according to the IECLB.

In Geneva, the secretary general of the Lutheran World Federation Ishmael Noko said the arrests were positive. However, he said that the arrest of a pastor from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Mozambique (IELM) as a suspect "constitutes reason for additional consternation and suffering."

Since Edinger's murder the IECLB, the LWF and the IELM have repeatedly demanded that the case be investigated and those responsible punished. The three entities maintain this position, said the pastor president of the Brazilian Church Walter Altmann.

In a recent letter sent to the Mozambique Justice Minister, José Ibraimo Abudo, Noko manifested the LWF's concern about the slowness of the investigation. Now, the ecumenical body hopes that the government proceeds swiftly and provides the accused with adequate legal protection.

Recently the IECLB legal advisor Milton Laske and sister Ruthild Brakemeier, of the Hermandad Sofía Zink, that Edinger belonged to were in Mozambique. Laske y Ruthild met in Nampula with the provincial attorney, Alberto Paulo, responsible for the investigation.

Edinger, age 53, went to work in the Lutheran Church of Mozambique in July 1998 and was much loved by local congregations.