The body of José Eduardo dos Santos, the former president of Angola, who passed away on Friday at the age of 79 in a Barcelona clinic, will undergo an autopsy, a Spanish court has ruled.
A court spokeswoman stated on Monday that the court had approved a family member’s request for the autopsy, which was still pending, but she gave no further information.
Tchizé dos Santos, whose daughter is being represented by the Carmen Varela family law firm, claimed earlier that she had requested that her father’s body be kept in Spain for a thorough autopsy because of allegedly “suspicious circumstances of his death,” without offering any supporting documentation.
The office of Angolan President Joo Lourenço reported that his predecessor, who resigned five years prior, passed away while receiving treatment at the Teknon clinic in Barcelona for a protracted illness.
The clinic chose not to respond to inquiries about the man’s death or the request for an autopsy.
He had been receiving medical treatment since 2019 and Portuguese news agency Lusa reported in June he was in intensive care in Barcelona, citing a source close to him, as the Angolan government said the former leader had suffered a deterioration in his health. read more
Tchizé and her lawyers also argue that dos Santos’ wish was to be buried in Barcelona rather than his body being returned to Angola for a state funeral.
Despite being handpicked by dos Santos to succeed him, Lourenço swiftly moved to investigate allegations of multi-billion dollar corruption during the former president’s era, often involving the dos Santos family.
Dos Santos, who said in a rare 2013 interview he would like to be remembered “as a good patriot”, never specifically responded to the allegations that he had allowed corruption to become rampant.
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