The editor-in-chief of online newspaper Diário de Notícias, was gunned down in Maputocity as he was out exercising before starting his work. Unidentified armed men shot him four times – two in the head and two in the back- from a car in Vladimir Lenine Avenue, one of the city’s main artery, before driving away, the IFJ affiliated National Journalists’ Union said.

Media reported that Machava, an experienced and very well-known journalist in the country who had previously worked for Rádio Moçambique and Savana weekly paper, was leading a campaign supporting the economist Nuno Castel-Branco and journalists Fernando Veloso and Fernando Banze who are on trial. Mr. Castel-Branco faces national security on trial for charges charges while the two journalists are accused of press freedom abuses. Their cases arose from Castel-Branco’s open letter to the former President of the Republic Armando Guebuza which was posted on his Facebook page in 2013 and published by the journalists’ media outlets.