Military chief axed over graft scandal

Angolan President Joao Lourenco has fired his military chief of staff over corruption allegations in a deepening purge of senior figures linked with graft. BBC News reports that Geraldo Nunda was named by prosecutors last month as a suspect in a corruption probe. Lourenco has vowed to tackle systemic corruption since he succeeded Jose Eduardo dos Santos, who had ruled Angola for 38 years, in September. A report on the News24 site notes that Nunda was named by the Attorney-General's office in an investigation into a fraudulent international credit scheme worth $50bn. Lourenco named Antonio Egidio de Sousa Santos as Nunda’s replacement. As previously reported in Legalbrief Today, Lourenco recently fired Isabel dos Santos, the billionaire daughter of his predecessor, as head of the country’s state oil company.