MISA Mozambique has welcomed the decision by the Supreme Court to reject the appeals made by the six men who were found guilty in January 2003 of the murder of the country's top investigative reporter, Carlos Cardoso. The Supreme Court agreed with the original trial judge, Augusto Paulino, that the main motive for the assassination was Cardoso's persistent investigation of the BCM fraud. A MISA-Mozambique statement declares that the confirmation of the original verdict and sentence "is an important landmark in the administration of justice in Mozambique, and strengthens the legitimate expectations of Mozambican society as to the determination of the national legal system in the fight against organised crime in general". July 24, 2007: Mozambique’s most notorious assassin, Anibal dos Santos Junior (better known as “Anibalzinho”), serving a sentence of 30 years for his part in the murder of the country’s top investigative journalist, Carlos Cardoso, in November 2000, attempted to escape from his cell in the Maputo City Police Command. According to a brief report in “Noticias” newspaper, Anibalzinho attempted to saw through the bars on his cell window. Hearing a suspicious noise, police guards investigated, and when they searched Anibalzinho’s cell, they found several saw blades. This is the fourth known attempt by Anibalzinho to escape from that cell since the Maputo City Court, in January 2006, found that he had indeed recruited and led the death squad that murdered Cardoso. So This Is Democracy? 2007 -61- Media Institute of Southern Africa