Carlos Alberto, editor of the investigative news site Portal A Denúncia, was arrested on September 29, 2023, to serve a three-year jail term for failing to comply with a 2022 Supreme Court order to publicly apologize to a government official in relation to a 2021 conviction for defamation. Alberto’s sentence was subsequently reduced to 27 months by a 2022 national amnesty law, and he was eligible for parole in November 2024. However, Alberto remained detained in mid-December 2024 as prison officials had yet to complete the administrative procedures required before the courts could authorize his release, according to the journalist’s lawyer, Almeida Lucas.
On October 2, 2023, the Luanda district court told Alberto, who also reports current affairs and corruption for the YouTube and Facebook-based Portal A Denúncia, that he had been arrested for failing to comply with an earlier court ruling. This related to his conviction on September 13, 2021, for criminal defamation, injurious defamation, and violating press freedom for his reports alleging that the then-deputy attorney general Luis Liz illegally appropriated land for a shopping mall.
At that time, Alberto was sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of 110 million kwanzas ($176,000) to Liz and two others that Alberto alleged were involved in the corrupt deal, according to media reports and Alberto, who spoke to CPJ at the time.
The court said Alberto could remain free if he apologized to the three offended parties within 20 days, those sources said. Alberto was ordered to re-publish the apology every five days for 45 days, according to the ruling, reviewed by CPJ, and Rádio Nacional de Angola.
Alberto told CPJ then that he would not apologize and filed an appeal.
On June 23, 2022, the Supreme Court dismissed Alberto’s appeal and increased his suspended sentence from two to three years in prison, plus a fine of 3,500 million kwanzas (US$4,240), but said that the sentence would be waived if he apologized within 20 days and re-published the statement every 10 days for 60 days, according to Lucas and CPJ’s review of the ruling.
From April 25, 2023, onwards, Alberto published seven apologies on Facebook, in which he compared his situation to the biblical story of the fight between David and the giant Goliath. On September 14, 2023, Judge Josina Falcão of the Luanda District Court issued an arrest warrant, reviewed by CPJ, for failure to comply with the court order, RFI reported.
On October 2, 2023, Lucas asked the court to release his client, given that the journalist had apologized and volunteered to pay the fine, but the court said Alberto’s apologies showed defiance of the ruling, the lawyer told CPJ.
On October 10, 2023, Portal A Denúncia posted an article saying that Alberto retracted his 2021 corruption report.
Liz’s lawyer signed an agreement on October 11, 2023, reviewed by CPJ, which said “the offended saw no inconvenience on (Alberto’s) release from prison” if he continued to apologize sincerely after being released. Liz also told CPJ that he took no pleasure in Alberto’s continued imprisonment, even though the journalist had damaged his reputation.
On October 16, 2023, Falcão signed an order, reviewed by CPJ, for Alberto to be released, having accepted his attorney’s submission that the journalist would pay the fine and a letter from Liz’s lawyer, also reviewed by CPJ, confirming that Liz had accepted Alberto’s apology. A day later, Falcão reversed her order, saying she had no jurisdiction to free Alberto, and referred the case to the Supreme Court, according to court documents reviewed by CPJ and Lucas.
On October 23, 2023, Lucas applied to the Supreme Court for Alberto’s release on the basis of Liz’s acceptance of Alberto’s apologies but the court never heard the petition, the lawyer told CPJ. In October 2024, Lucas told CPJ that he filed another Supreme Court application for Alberto to be released in mid-November, citing a 2022 national amnesty law that cut sentences like Alberto’s by a quarter and article 59 of Angola’s penal code, which stipulates that convicted persons may be released on parole after serving half their prison term.
On November 1, 2024, Daniel Ferreira, secretary of Angola’s Supreme Court president, told CPJ that, to his knowledge, the Supreme Court had no objection to the conditional release plea but had referred it back to the Luanda District Court that originally ordered Alberto’s arrest. That same day, Álvaro João, spokesperson of the prosecutor general’s office, told CPJ that Alberto should be freed on parole upon completing half of his sentence. In late 2024, Lucas told CPJ that Alberto’s release was pending prison officials vouching for his good behavior to the court and completing administrative procedures, such as assessing the home where the journalist would live upon his release, to ensure it meets conditions for parole. Alberto remained imprisoned in Viana, a suburb east of Luanda, in mid-December.