Iskandar Safa’s farewell to public life could have been a crowning moment. On January 19 President Macron of France toured CMN (Constructions mécaniques de Normandie), the shipyard Safa saved from bankruptcy 32 years ago. A beaming Macron made a speech about doubling the army’s budget. Some of that public money would be going to CMN, a supplier of patrol vessels to the French navy.
However, Safa, just ten days from death, was too weak to welcome the president to Normandy. Instead, the billionaire made his final public appearance in October last year, in an altogether grimmer setting: the High Court in London.
He stood accused of orchestrating a corrupt scheme that brought an entire economy to its knees. The administration of President Nyusi of Mozambique