Spain court drops ‘attempted murder’ lawsuit over Angola’s Dos Santos

A Spanish court has thrown out a lawsuit alleging the attempted murder of former Angolan president Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who died in a Barcelona hospital in July, according to documents made public Tuesday.

The lawsuit was filed just days before his death by Welwitschia “Tchize” dos Santos, one of his daughters, who accused his wife Ana Paula and personal physician of “attempted murder”.

The 79-year-old had been taken to hospital and placed in intensive care after suffering a cardiac arrest on June 23, with the complaint alleging a “failure to exercise a duty of care” and “injury resulting from gross negligence”.

Dos Santos, who ruled the oil-rich African nation with an iron first from 1979 to 2017, died in the hospital on July 8.

His 44-year-old daughter subsequently demanded an autopsy on the grounds he died in “suspicious circumstances”.

But the results concluded he had died from “natural causes”.

“The fact that the death was due exclusively to natural causes rules out any type of crime,” a Barcelona court said in a ruling dated September 19 which was made public on Tuesday.

The nearly four-decade tenure of dos Santos, who stepped down in 2017, saw members of his family capitalise on the nation’s oil riches while most Angolans remained mired in poverty.

He was buried in Luanda, the capital of Angola, in a state funeral on August 28 on what would have been his 80th birthday.

Tchize dos Santos tried to block the repatriation of her father’s remains in the courts, arguing he wanted to be buried in Barcelona, where he had lived most of the time since he stepped down as president of Angola.