Angola’s Isabel dos Santos decries corruption ‘witch hunt’

Angolan billionaire and former first daughter Isabel Dos Santos decried a New Year’s Eve court order to freeze her vast assets as a “witch hunt” engineered to weaken her father’s influence and distract from economic failures.

Dos Santos, named Africa’s richest woman by Forbes with a fortune estimated at over $2 billion, is a highly divisive figure in Angola, where she is nicknamed “the Princess”.

Supporters see an inspirational entrepreneur while detractors say she embodies the kind of nepotism and corruption that has hamstrung the continent.

Since President Joao Lourenco succeeded dos Santos’s father José Eduardo in 2017, after a nearly four-decade grip on power, he has cracked down on the role of his predecessor’s children in state enterprises.

He fired dos Santos from her job chairing oil firm Sonangol and her brother from the sovereign wealth fund.

In the latest step of what Angolan authorities say is one of Africa’s most successful anti-corruption drives, dos Santos’s assets were frozen on Dec. 31, threatening to turn a titan of African business into a pariah.

In an interview with Reuters, the 46-year-old rejected the corruption allegations leveled at her.

“This is a political trial, you have a persecuting state and servile and partisan magistrates. Then you have a woman who has been chosen to set an example as a scapegoat. That’s me.” Dos Santos told Reuters in an interview in London.