Attorney General hands in resignation

The tiny West African island nation of Sao Tome and Principe's Attorney General, Adelino Neto Pereira, has resigned his post amidst claims by parliament that his appointment was illegal.

Pereira was named Attorney General in a decree issued by President Fradique de Menezes in April. Last week, the National Assembly said his appointment was illegal because he had never worked in the country's judiciary and asked Prime Minister Maria das Neves to review the appointment.

"The conditions for carrying out of my duties are not present, today I handed in to the president of the republic my resignation," the Portuguese news agency, Lusa, quoted Pereira as telling reporters on Monday.

"I leave the Office of Attorney General convinced that, notwithstanding my ephemeral passage through this state organ, the foundations for the execution of very important work were created, that may lead to the dignifying of justice in Sao Tome and Principe," he added.

Pereira had tried to convince parliamentarians that his appointment was legal because he worked for five years as an attorney in Portugal, the country's colonial power, after completing a law degree in Lisbon. The parliament rejected his argument.

During a session of parliament last week, members criticised the island's entire justice, prompting the Justice and Public Safety Minister, Justino Veigas, to state that the judiciary was "not performing well", Lusa reported.

Parliamentarians said the judiciary was controlled by political power" and that it functioned "on the basis of injustice, incompetence and in defence of the big shots". The minister said efforts were being made to improve the judiciary.

The island of Sao Tome and Principe was thrown into political turmoil when soldiers seized power on 16 July. The soldiers however accepted to allow Menezes back into office a few days later, after international mediators intervened.

Menezes, who was visiting Nigeria when the coup occurred, flew back to the twin-island state, 240 km west of Gabon accompanied by Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. Many of those involved in the coup were former members of the Buffalo Battalion, a mercenary unit created by the Apartheid government in South Africa in the 1970s to fight in Namibia and Angola. It was disbanded in 1993.

Menezes was elected in 2001. The coup leaders said they had seized power out of frustration at the persistence of grinding poverty among Sao Tome's 170,000 inhabitants. They accused senior officials of corruption.

The mountainous and heavily forested islands, which gained independence from Portugal in 1975, suffered one previous short-lived military takeover in 1995. The leaders of that coup handed power back to the country's elected leaders a week later following mediation by Angola.