16 Aug 2022

Threat to kill accused, Basimanebotlhe Rakodu of Sese on Monday had his plea to set new dates for his trail turned down by the Jwaneng Magistrate Court.

Rakodu, who was on trial for a case of threat to kill, informed the magistrate that to his awareness, his case was supposed to come for trial on September 5, but was surprised to see prisons officials coming for him on Monday morning.

He said as such he came to court unprepared. Rakodu is accused of having threatened to kill a woman who has laid a case of rape against him, allegedly in an attempt to ‘erase evidence’.

“I do not have any documents with me here that can assist me in the trial, so I am not prepared,” he said when asked if he was ready to proceed with trial. 

“All along I knew that I was supposed to come for trial on September 5, not this month,” he said.

His efforts were, however, shot down by Senior Magistrate Caroline Kataba as ‘just a tactic to delay the court’.

“You have been coming for mentions before this court since April and each time, for the past four months, the trial dates were read to you and you confirmed their suitability. To come here today and claim that you were not aware of the very same dates is just an attempt to hold the court at ransom, which I will not allow. 

So your trial will proceed,” she said.

The prosecution went on to call six witnesses, all of whom the accused person failed to pose any questions to when given a chance to cross examine them. 

This was despite the fact that the court advised him against his stance, indicating that failure to cross examine the witnesses would leave the court with no option, but to conclude that their evidence was the truth of what transpired. The first witness, who was the complainant, indicated that on September 26, 2020 at Sese, Rakodu came storming into her place while she was about to sleep around 7pm.

“He then threatened to kill me. He uttered the words, ‘Ke tsile go go bolaya ke hetsa bosupi’. Quizzed on which evidence she understood the accused to mean, she indicated that she understood him to mean the evidence of the case of rape that she had laid against him.

“I did not take his threats lightly looking at how infuriated he was. He chased me around the yard and my son went to call a neighbour, who pleaded with him to calm down, but to no avail,” she said.

The complainant said that as the accused showed no signs of cooling down, her son rushed to call her neighbour’s fiancé, who managed to apprehend the accused until the police arrived and took them for questioning.

Put on the witness stand, constable Monthati Mongape of Jwaneng police, who made the arrest, said that they received the call at around 8:20 that night, with the caller indicating that someone was beating up her mother.

“We rushed to Sese and arrived to find the accused with his hands and feet tied up, with bruises all over his body, which the complainant admitted to administering,” he said. The prosecution also called four other witnesses, all of whom Rakodu indicated that he had no questions for, despite the court’s repeated advise on the importance of cross examining them.

The trial will continue on August 31 as the prosecution indicated that its last witness was still at the Police College on a two-weeks course. ends