04 Jul 2013

Intoxication has saved the murder-accused, Tokotsane Montsho from the death sentence. Instead,  Gaborone High Court slapped Montsho with a 15-year term for the murder of Oageng Maselo in September 2012.

Justice David Newman said intoxication negatively impacted on Montsho’s reasoning and emotional faculties and seriously impaired his judgement. For this reason, he said, he found existence of extenuating circumstances, which warranted the imposition of a sentence other than the death sentence.

Montsho's co-accused Boso Tsoko, who was accused of aggravating assault, was sentenced to four years in jail, three of which were wholly suspended on condition that he would not commit a similar offence within three years.

Tsoko was warned that should he commit a similar offence during the period, the three-year suspended sentence would be activated before trial of the offence he would have committed. 

Justice Newman said although the court found that both accused had been engaged in the commissioning of a criminal offence against the deceased, namely, an aggravated form of theft, he also found, in favour of Montsho, that he withdrew the knife from his pocket and used it to stab the deceased after having been bitten by the latter when attempting to fend off the advances of his assailants.

Justice Newman said though he appreciated the need to temper justice with mercy, he was of the firm view that the accused’s callous conduct towards an unarmed victim for purposes of monetary gains, merits the imposition of substantial terms of imprisonment.  

He ordered that their sentences be backdated to September last year when they were incarcerated and declared that the knife used to perpetrate the crime be forfeited to the state. ENDS