Notwithstanding these credentials, he was arrested at his Luanda home at dawn on October 16 last year by officers of the Department of National Criminal Investigations. The Supreme Court ruled, despite a challenge from Marques's lawyer, that the case should proceed, and in December 1999, after a closed trial in which he was permitted to call on only one witness, he was sentenced to a year's imprisonment, indefinitely suspended. While awaiting appeal, he is forbidden to leave the country and cannot publish his articles. Marques's e-mails to his friends and supporters around the world indicate that he is buoyant and resolute despite these recent troubles. Two journalists who called the president of Angola a dictator were convicted of defamation and sentenced to prison.
Marques now faces between two and eight years in prison.