Estácio Valoi tells investigators his reporting on Safi Timber is accurate and claims the government has appealed a court ruling authorising the release of 111 timber containers, raising fresh questions about the shipment’s legal status and the prosecution of the journalist.
By Collins Mtika
Mozambican investigative journalist Estácio Valoi has defended his reporting on a controversial timber shipment during more than two hours of questioning by criminal investigators, insisting that his investigations into Safi Timber were accurate and revealing what he says is a government appeal against a court decision authorising the release of 111 containers of timber.
Valoi, editor of the independent news platform Moz24h, appeared before the National Criminal Investigation Service (SERNIC) in Pemba on Monday, 26 October 2026, in connection with a criminal defamation complaint filed by Safi Timber.
The questioning lasted two hours and 15 minutes, according to Valoi’s account of the interrogation, provided to the Centre for Investigative Journalism Malawi.
The hearing marked a new stage in proceedings that have drawn concern from international press freedom organisations, particularly after investigators seized Valoi’s electronic equipment in June and retained it for more than three months.
Speaking after the hearing, Valoi said investigators questioned whether the information he had published about the timber company was false.
“They asked me if all the information I had posted about Safi Timber was false,” he recounted. “I replied that it was not—that all the information I posted about Safi Timber is, in fact, true.”
His remarks amounted to a firm rejection of the suggestion that the original reporting was fabricated. They did not, however, resolve the separate legal questions surrounding the company’s export documentation or the disputed shipment.
Investigators focus on 111 timber containers
At the centre of the investigation is a shipment of 111 containers of timber detained at the Port of Beira in August 2025.
The containers, reportedly destined for China, became the subject of public controversy after questions emerged about whether the cargo and its export documentation complied with Mozambican law.
Valoi told investigators that the detention of the containers was a documented event witnessed by journalists from several media organisations and officials from multiple government institutions.
Those present, he said, included representatives of the Environmental Quality Agency (AQUA), the tax authority and criminal investigators.
He argued that the physical detention of the shipment was not a disputed or invented event.
“I explained that there was nothing false about the seizure that took place,” Valoi said.
He further maintained that statements issued by authorities at the time had linked the operation to suspected timber smuggling.
The distinction between an officially documented seizure and proof of criminal conduct is important.
Previous Mozambican reporting cited forestry official Arsénio Chelengo as saying that inspectors identified sawn timber rather than unprocessed logs, while examinations of the export process and supporting documentation were continuing.
A subsequent Customs Court decision also treated the cargo as sawn timber rather than prohibited logs or timber from species protected under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Those findings are relevant to Safi Timber’s defence and mean that the initial suspicions cannot, by themselves, be treated as proof that the shipment was illegal.
Valoi nevertheless insists that the broader issues raised by his investigations extend beyond the physical characteristics of the timber.
Journalist disputes whether court ruling ended cargo seizure
One of the most significant developments in Valoi’s account concerns the legal status of the detained cargo.
On 31 October 2025, according to previously published reports, the Sofala Provincial Customs Court authorised the release of the 111 containers after Safi Timber provided a security guarantee of three million meticais.
The ruling was reported in January 2026 and was widely presented as a decision favouring the company.
It distinguished the seized cargo from unprocessed logs and protected timber whose export would be prohibited.
But Valoi told investigators that the ruling does not establish that the timber was subsequently exported.
According to his account, the Mozambican government appealed the Customs Court decision, and the cargo remains under state control.
“The reality is that, to this day, the timber remains in the possession of the party that seized it: the Government,” Valoi said.
He further claimed that the legal dispute had moved from Sofala province to Maputo and that the timber itself was being held in Maputo.
“It was not exported; it is still there,” he maintained.
These claims introduce a potentially important distinction between a court order authorising the release or export of cargo and evidence that the order was implemented.
However, CIJM has not independently examined the government appeal, any subsequent judicial ruling, or official custody and shipping records confirming the timber’s present location.
The precise effect of any appeal on the October 2025 order therefore remains to be established.
If the government has indeed challenged the decision, the dispute over the timber may be more legally complex than earlier accounts of the release order suggested.
That would not, on its own, establish wrongdoing by Safi Timber or invalidate the court’s initial findings.
Questions over delayed delivery of court documents
Valoi also raised questions about the circumstances in which a document from the Customs Court was sent to him and other media organisations that had reported on the detained shipment.
He said the document, which he dated to 30 October 2025, reached journalists only around 24 or 25 December that year.
Other published accounts date the court’s release order to 31 October 2025. The discrepancy requires comparison with the original judicial documents.
According to Valoi, the correspondence urged the journalists to publish the ruling as evidence that the export had been authorised.
He characterised the communication as intimidating and said it was intended to pressure the media into changing or revisiting their reporting.
Valoi told investigators that he declined to publish the document on those terms or amend his earlier reporting without further verification.
He said he had consulted his sources and publicly available information, including shipping-related records, but found nothing establishing that the timber had actually left Mozambique.
The journalist questioned why the court document was circulated to reporters nearly two months after the date he attributed to it.
He also suggested that the company might have been aware of subsequent developments affecting the decision.
In Valoi’s interpretation, publicising the court ruling could have served both to strengthen the company’s position in its dispute with the authorities and to improve its public reputation.
That remains his interpretation, not an independently established account of Safi Timber’s motives.
The company’s explanation for the timing and purpose of the correspondence has not been established in the information available for this update.
Investigation dates back to 2023
Valoi told SERNIC that his investigation into Safi Timber did not begin with the detention of the 111 containers.
He said the company’s name first surfaced in his reporting around October 2023, potentially earlier, and that he and his colleagues had spent a lengthy period attempting to obtain its response to questions concerning the timber trade.
According to the journalist, those efforts included contacting colleagues in other provinces in an attempt to identify representatives who could speak for the company.
He said that an intermediary eventually approached him, indicating that individuals representing the firm were interested in an amicable discussion.
Valoi maintained that his position throughout was that the company should answer the journalists’ questions and be given an opportunity to explain its position.
He said that meaningful responses to the reporting questions had not been forthcoming through those approaches and described the subsequent court-document correspondence as the first substantial material he received in response.
The company’s account of those communications has not been independently obtained.
Sources and shipping records discussed during questioning
The interrogation also addressed the evidence supporting Valoi’s reporting, including photographs and information about the movement of the containers.
Valoi said he explained that investigative journalists use both publicly available records and confidential sources.
“In journalism, there are open sources and closed sources,” he told investigators.
He maintained that some elements of the shipment’s movement could be traced through container identification numbers and port registration records.
According to his account, these records could help establish movements from Cabo Delgado to Beira and identify the intended onward destination.
Such documentation could be significant in resolving competing claims about the cargo’s movement.
But the actual container records, shipping documentation and any subsequent changes in custody would need to be examined before conclusions could be drawn about the shipment’s final destination.
The questioning about photographs and sources is also significant because investigators previously held Valoi’s professional electronic devices, raising concerns about the protection of confidential journalistic material.
It remains unclear what information, if any, authorities accessed or copied while the devices were in their possession.
More than 100 days without equipment
Valoi used the interrogation to highlight what he considers disproportionate treatment in the investigation.
On 16 June 2026, three SERNIC officers searched his home in Pemba under a warrant issued on 25 May.
They seized professional and personal electronic equipment, including a laptop, mobile phones and a tablet.
The Committee to Protect Journalists reported that the warrant did not explain why investigators needed to seize the equipment.
On 9 September, the Judicial Court of Pemba ordered the devices returned, and Valoi recovered them on 18 September, according to Amnesty International.
The devices were therefore held for approximately 94 days, although Valoi described the period during which he was affected and deprived of his working equipment as exceeding 100 days.
He said the interruption caused significant economic and social hardship.
Valoi also questioned why he had been subjected to such measures when journalists from other outlets had covered the same timber seizure.
“I also pointed out to them that the only seizure—or, more accurately, the only search and seizure—carried out in connection with this entire matter was directed at me,” he said.
His allegation of selective treatment has not been established by a judicial finding.
Nevertheless, the seizure has attracted international criticism.
Global Climate Legal Defense, which supported the challenge to the confiscation, has characterised the proceedings as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP.
That is the organisation’s assessment, rather than a court determination.
Defamation complaint remains unresolved
Valoi was formally designated a suspect on 23 April 2026 after Safi Timber brought a criminal defamation complaint relating to reporting published in August 2025.
His lawyer, Augusto Messariamba, previously told the Committee to Protect Journalists that a conviction could carry a prison sentence of up to one year.
The precise charge, applicable penalty and eventual direction of the proceedings remain subject to confirmation from the case record.
Valoi also told investigators that Mozambican press law provides procedures and deadlines through which individuals or institutions can challenge published information and seek corrections or responses.
He referred to periods of 21 and 90 days in describing those procedures.
The exact application of those statutory time limits to the present complaint has not been independently verified.
The central legal question is whether the authorities are investigating a demonstrably defamatory publication or whether the process risks imposing a disproportionate burden on investigative reporting into a matter of public interest.
Safi Timber retains the right to challenge inaccurate reporting and to defend its reputation.
Equally, journalists have a legitimate role in examining the conduct of companies operating in an industry affected by concerns over illegal logging, export controls and government enforcement.
Wider implications for press freedom
Mozambique’s timber trade has long attracted international scrutiny.
A 2024 Environmental Investigation Agency investigation estimated that illegal logging and associated trade cost Mozambique approximately US$500 million annually, identifying China as a major destination for unprocessed timber exports.
That sector-wide estimate is not evidence of wrongdoing by Safi Timber.
The Valoi case is taking place against a broader backdrop of pressure on journalists in Mozambique, particularly in Cabo Delgado, where reporting has been complicated by years of armed conflict and insecurity.
Mozambique ranked 99th out of 180 countries and territories in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders.
The African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights has called for criminal defamation laws to be replaced with proportionate civil remedies and has emphasised safeguards for journalists’ confidential sources.
Those principles do not prevent companies from pursuing legitimate remedies for harmful inaccuracies. They do, however, underscore the importance of preventing criminal proceedings from becoming an instrument of intimidation.
What happens next?
Following Monday’s interrogation, Valoi said he was awaiting the next procedural steps.
His account introduces several questions that remain unanswered.
Chief among them is whether the Mozambican government formally appealed the Customs Court’s October 2025 ruling, whether that appeal affected the release order, and where the 111 containers are now held.
It also remains unclear whether investigators intend to pursue additional evidence from Valoi, how the authorities assess the accuracy of the disputed reporting, and whether the proceedings will advance towards trial.
Confirmation of the cargo’s current legal status will require access to the court appeal and relevant government and shipping records.
There is no new independently verified response from Safi Timber, SERNIC or prosecutors addressing the claims made by Valoi after his interrogation.
For now, the journalist maintains that his reporting was accurate, while Safi Timber’s previously reported court victory remains an important part of the record.
The case has consequently become more than a dispute over one timber shipment.
It now raises a broader question about how Mozambique’s criminal justice system balances corporate reputation, the enforcement of export laws, and the right of investigative journalists to report on matters of public interest without disproportionate interference.
The Centre for Investigative Journalism Malawi will continue to examine the judicial record and the competing accounts of the shipment’s status as further evidence becomes available.
