Maputo — The lawyer for the family of murdered civil society activist Anastacio Matavel, Flavio Menete, on Thursday insisted that the Mozambican state must compensate the family.

Not only are Silica and Mapulasse in the dock: so are their commanding officers, Tudela Guirrugo, commander of the Gaza company of the GOE and Alfredo Macuacua, commander of the Gaza branch of the UIR (Rapid Intervention Unit, the Mozambican riot police).

While the Public Prosecutor's Office, represented at the trial by Luis Vianheque, has no doubt that the police officers are guilty, it argues that the state should not pay compensation to the family because the accused were acting on their own, and not as agents of the state.

According to the account of the trial in Friday's issue of the independent newssheet "Medafax", Menete, who is a former chairperson of the Mozambique Bar Association (OAM), argued that the state is responsible - the murder was a state crime, carried out by police officers, using police guns.

Elisio de Sousa, the lawyer for Silica, Mapulasse, Guirrugo and Macuacua, also argued that the crimes were not committed in the name of the state, because "the state does not commit crimes".