AA / Pascal Mulegwa
The preliminary results of the autopsy carried out last weekend on former Angolan President José Eduardo dos Santos report “heart failure” and “a major lung infection”, which led to the death last Friday of the former leader.
The preliminary result removes, at least for now, one of the questions raised by Tchizé dos Santos, his daughter, who had indicated that her father could have been poisoned.
She had taken legal action in Barcelona to demand an autopsy before the funeral.
According to the Angolan press, the guarantee that José Eduardo dos Santos was not poisoned was given by the Attorney General of the Angolan Republic, who is part of the delegation dispatched to Barcelona for the transfer of the body of the former president.
The former leader’s daughter is challenging the Angolan authorities’ decision to hold an official funeral in Luanda, saying her father had expressed a wish to be buried in Spain.
Dos Santos died on Friday morning at the age of 79 in the Barcelona clinic in Spain where he was hospitalized following a cardiac arrest on June 23.
He came to power in September 1979, following the death of Angola’s first president, António Agostinho Neto. He left the presidency 38 years later in September 2017 after an election that saw the victory of his party, the MPLA and the current head of state, João Lourenço, his loyal former minister of La Defense.
The Angolan government has decreed a national mourning of 5 to 7 days to honor his memory.
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