Influential Mozambican lawyer Cistac gunned down in taxi

By Manuel Mucari MAPUTO (Reuters) - A gunman shot dead on Tuesday a prominent Mozambican lawyer who was viewed as sympathetic to opposition calls for decentralisation of power in the resource-rich southern African country. Gilles Cistac, 54 and of French origin, had been in a taxi on his way to work when a car carrying four men pulled up alongside the cab and one of them shot him several times, police spokesman Orlando Modumane said. Cistac had been a central figure in a debate about the creation of autonomous states in Mozambique, a country that has attracted billions of dollars in foreign investment in recent years after making huge coal and natural gas finds. Mozambique's main opposition party Renamo has called for its politicians to govern regions where it won more votes than the ruling Frelimo party in elections last year. Last month, Cistac told reporters the creation of autonomous regions would be allowed under the constitution, a controversial standpoint given that Renamo has also proposed that Mozambique should be divided into two countries. Former rebel group Renamo said Cistac had been killed because of his views on decentralisation. "He was killed for having expressed his opinions regarding the most contentious political issues in the country," Renamo spokesman António Muchanga told Reuters. The ruling Frelimo party also condemned the killing. "We condemn the attack and demand that the perpetrators are caught and brought to justice," presidential spokesman Antonio Gaspar told reporters. Although Frelimo has repeatedly rejected calls for regional autonomy, President Filipe Nyusi agreed to debate decentralisation in parliament after Renamo parliamentarians refused to take up their seats following the 2014 vote. There have been concerns in recent years that Mozambique could slip back into conflict after Renamo withdrew from a 1992 peace deal that ended a 16-year civil war. Renamo leader Afonso Dhlakama has long been a thorn in the side of Frelimo leaders, fighting the ruling party in the bush and at the ballot box for more than 30 years. In the two years before the election, Dhlakama's armed Renamo partisans clashed sporadically with government troops and police and ambushed traffic on a north-south highway. Mineral-rich but impoverished Mozambique is high on investor radar screens, with brisk annual economic growth rates of eight percent fuelled by coal and gas discoveries. U.S. oil major Anadarko and Italy's Eni are developing some of the world's biggest untapped natural gas reserves in the north of the country. (Writing by Joe Brock; Editing by James Macharia and Gareth Jones)