Pedro Ferraz Correia dos Reis was an administrator at the BCI bank, owned by Caixa Geral de Depósitos and BPI.
Conclusion of the investigation says that Pedro Reis cut himself in several places on his body and ingested rat poison in a hotel. “I’ve never seen it, I confess I’ve never seen it, or it’s not normal”, says a former PJ inspector.
Administrator of BCI bank (mainly owned by Caixa Geral de Depósitos and minority by BPI) Pedro Ferraz Correia dos Reis was found dead at the Polana hotel, in Maputo, Mozambique, and the Mozambican police quickly concluded that the case was a homicide with a knife. But a day later the investigation denied this conclusion: after all, it was suicide.
The new (and unexpected) conclusion came from Sernic, the Mozambican National Criminal Investigation Service. Although Pedro Reis was found with multiple injuries, including a stab wound to the back, the entity claims that no one entered the bathroom other than the banker and that the victim took a kitchen knife from home and ingested rat poison.
The conclusion is based on the analysis of recordings from the hotel, in conjunction with the Maputo Legal Medicine and with the presence of magistrates from the Public Ministry.
“There is no doubtuntil now, that it is a case of suicide and not homicide as has been rumored”, said Sernic spokesperson, Hilário Lole, at a press conference, cited by the Mozambican newspaper.
But many began to raise doubts: how to explain a suicide that involves multiple cuts on the hands, wounds on the neck, a thigh, the heart and the back?
“I’ve never seen it, I confess I’ve never seen it, or it’s not normalsomeone who wants to commit suicide, take rat medicine and then slit their wrists. Either he cuts his wrists or takes poison and lies down and then dies”, he confesses, very directly, to Carlos Anjos, former inspector of the Judiciary Police. And the stab in the back really raises many doubts regarding the conclusion of the Mozambican investigation.
It is not impossible, but it is logistically difficult for someone to injure themselves deeply in an area of the body that they cannot see and where the range of movement is limited. And why this effort, if the objective is just to die? And why would you do it in a hotel room, with a kitchen knife from home?
“The feeling I have, from what I read, is that there is a great desire on the part of the Mozambican authorities to either shelve the process or have no work”, says the former inspector.
However, a petition asking for intervention from the Portuguese State. Until then, the Portuguese embassy in Maputo limited itself to mourning the death and offering condolences, without commenting on the circumstances.
The fact that the victim was an important figure in the banking sector raises further suspicion. In Mozambique, most banks have levels of damaged credit above the ratio recommended by the Bank of Mozambique (5%). The BCI, one of the four largest in the country and capitals with strong Portuguese participation, will have worsened this indicator in 2024, reaching 10.97%.
