Joaquim (Alberto) Chissano

Mozambique statesman, prime minister (1974–75), and president (1986–2005), born in Chibuto, S Mozambique. During the campaign for independence in the early 1960s he joined the National Front for the Liberation of Mozambique (Frelimo) and became secretary to its leader, Samora Machel. When internal self-government was granted in 1974 he was appointed prime minister. He then served under Machel as foreign minister, and on Machel's death in 1986 succeeded him as president. He was re-elected in 1994.

Chissano was born in Chibuto village, Gaza Province, Mozambique.

On 11 May 2006, the Mozambican news agency AIM reported that the Mozambican public prosecutor's office had charged Chissano's eldest son Nyimpine Chissano of "joint moral authorship" of the murder of Carlos Cardoso in 2000, and of unspecified economic crimes. AIM also quoted a report in the Mozambican journal Zambeze that a Maputo prosecutor, Fernando Canana, had issued an arrest warrant for Nyimpine Chissano which was subsequently suspended because of the personal intervention of former president Chissano and his wife.