26 Aug 2020

A Khudumelapye woman in Letlhakeng Sub-district was on Tuesday fined P6 000 and ordered to pay it on the same day or face one year imprisonment for dagga possession. 

Bontsenye Phalalo, 37, of Molehele Ward at Khudumelapye, was fined for the offence committed in 2018. 

The charge sheet stated that Phalalo was on October 10, 2018 at Khudumelapye in Kweneng district administrative, found dealing with dagga, a habit forming drug commonly known as cannabis weighing 51.1grams without authorisation.

The accused was arrested following a tip-off where upon a green substance suspected to be dagga and cash amounting to P9 647.70 were discovered from her on October 10, 2018.

In passing sentence, Molepolole Magistrate Ms Kefilwe Resheng said she considered mitigating factors by the accused but was therefore bound to impose a fine that would act as a deterrent against similar offenders.

She ordered that the P9 647.70 cash suspected to have been raised through illicit dealing be forfeited by the state and the 17 sachets of dagga be destroyed. 

The accused, in mitigation, had pleaded with the magistrate to be lenient in sentencing her because she was a single mother raising school going children.

In another case, Magistrate Resheng has extended remand warrant of the Molepolole taxi driver Keemenao Malepa, 33, to September 24 after he allegedly attempted to murder his 32-year-old girlfriend Tshepiso Poupa and her five-year-old niece.

Malepa committed the alleged offence on July 1 at Hatsalatladi village where he shot his lover with a gun and wounded the niece with a stray bullet.

An attempt to plead for his release on bail hit a snag as the prosecution, Assistant Superintendent Uyapo Koketso pleaded for the extension of his remand warrant, arguing that one of the injured victims was still to undergo surgery for the removal of the gun pellets used during the horrific incident.

Magistrate Resheng therefore dismissed the plea by the accused to have him released on bail to seek medical attention due to uncontrollable hypertension, arguing that the alleged attack launched against the victim was still new. ends