One of the daughters of the former president, Tchizé Dos Santos, claimed an autopsy, judging the death of his father “suspect”.
Le Monde with AFP
Spanish justice opposed, Friday, July 15, to the presentation of the body to the family of former Angolan president José Eduardo Dos Santos, who died on July 8 in Barcelona, the time to carry out additional analyzes at the autopsy and identify “the family (s)” to who put the body back.
The Catalonic Court of Catalonia “does not accept to make available to the family the corpse of the ex-president of Angola, Mr. Dos Santos”, he announced in a short press release.
“Although the preliminary relationship of the autopsy indicates that the death of Mr. Dos Santos is natural, the magistrate has given his agreement for additional analyzes, given that a complaint had been filed for possible threats on This person “, continues the press release.
One of his daughters, Tchizé Dos Santos, had, in fact, complained in Spain a few days before the death of his father for “attempted homicide”. She accuses her father’s personal doctor and his last wife, Ana Paula, of being responsible for the deterioration of her state of health. She too had claimed an autopsy, judging the death of her father “suspect”.
She is also opposed to the return of her father’s body in Angola. He wanted to “be buried in intimacy in Spain”, where he had lived since 2019, and not in his country “with national funerals which could promote the current government” of President Joao Lourenço, according to a statement from his lawyers.
New analyzes requested
The preliminary results of the autopsy reported a “natural death”, with problems of “heart failure” and “pulmonary infection”, according to a source close to the file. Data-format = “inread” aria-hidden = “true”>
But the court warned that the delivery of the body would not take place “before obtaining the results of the requested analyzes and as long as the family members (s) will not be identified with the body” . “The magistrate considers that the investigation prevails the right of the direct family to recover the body,” it added, specifying that he had been officially asked of the Medico-Legal Institute to keep the corpse.
José Eduardo Dos Santos, who directed Angola with an iron fist from 1979 to 2017, died at the age of 79 in a clinic in Barcelona, where he had been hospitalized following Cardiac arrest on June 23. His investment in intensive care had revealed the lively tensions existing within the Dos Santos family, notably between his last wife, Ana Paula, and his daughter Tchizé Dos Santos, aged 44.