Rafael Marques de Morais...is preparing his defense against a politically motivated prosecution. On May 14, he will be in court in the capital Luanda defending himself against a litany of criminal defamation charges.  The charges stem from Marques’ 2011 book, Blood Diamonds: Corruption and Torture in Angola, which explained how Angolan military officials and private security companies killed and terrorized Angolan villagers to protect lucrative diamond mining operations... Just after his book was published, Marques filed a criminal complaint in Luanda accusing nine Angolan generals of crimes against humanity in connection with diamond mining. In response, seven of the generals and some of their fellow board members of two diamond companies, Sociedade Mineira do Cuango (SMC) and ITM-Mining, filed a number of lawsuits against Marques, alleging criminal defamation. Their lawsuit in Portugal, where Marques’ book was published, was dismissed for lack of evidence... Politically motivated prosecutions don’t get much clearer than this... But the biggest cost of this trial falls on the people of Angola, who continue to suffer from corruption and crimes at the hands of Angola’s political and military elite.