22 Mar 2015

A key state witness in the murder trial of Boitshwarelo Tau has told the Gaborone High Court that she has saw the accused assaulting the deceased, Sinki Phuthego, with stones which resulted in his death two months later.

Giving evidence in chief, led by Ms Sally Boitumelo of DPP recently before Chief Justice Mr Maruping Dibotelo, Ms Gakenasepe Morolong of Mahotshwane settlement near Mabutsane said it was around 5pm when she saw the accused, Tau and her boyfriend, Phuthego, passing through the passage of her homestead and that of her neighbour going in the direction of their home.

Ms Morolong, said though she has hearing impairment, she was certain that the two were neither talking nor quarrelling with each other when suddenly Tau who was following her boyfriend grabbed and tore his T-shirt before throwing its shredded pieces to the ground.

She said Phuthego, who appeared heavily intoxicated as he was staggering, tried to go back to the direction they were coming from but was hit by Tau with a stone on the head, knocking him down facewards.

As he lay restless and sprawled to the ground, Tau grabbed another stone and hit him twice on the head. Morolong said it was then that she stood up and gave the baby that she was breastfeeding to her boyfriend to reprimand Tau by demanding to know why she was assaulting Phuthego.

Under cross examination from defence lawyer Mr Gabriel Kanjabanga, she maintained that she did not pull away the accused from the deceased as she was barred by her fence separating them.

It was then that Morolong left for Tau’s grandfather’s homestead where she reported that Tau has assaulted Phuthego. Asked whether the accused and the deceased had a history of fighting, she said she was not privy to that, adding that she was not even their neighbour as they were separated by a distance of about 100m.


Morolong dismissed the suggestion by the defence that she was relating to the court what she heard from other people. She said she saw everything, particularly that she was there seating in her compound facing the western direction, where the couple was coming from.

Phuthego, who died at the hands of Tau on or about October 08, 2011 after a two-month hospitalisation period at Princess Marina Hospital in Gaborone, hailed from Dutlwe in Kweneng West. He reportedly had two children with the accused.

Meanwhile pathologist Dr Enock Prabhakar told the court he conducted the postmortem of the deceased on October 12, 2011, and came to the conclusion that he died from injuries sustained in the skull and a blood clot in pulmonary vein. The case continues. ENDS