27 Oct 2025

A lawyer representing Bantshuti Nkgarapi, charged with the murder of a University of Botswana (UB) employee, has accused the state of prejudicing his client’s bail application.

The attorney, Mr Tiroyaone Sedimo told Chief Magistrate Kamogelo Mmesi of Extension II Magistrate Court on Thursday that the state had withheld the psychiatric assessment report, which is crucial to the bail application.

Mr Sedimo said that when his client was denied bail, the court had made it clear that it would consider the bail issue once it had been furnished with the psychiatric report.

“We are here in court without having been served with the report and our hands are tied when we are not furnished with the psychiatric report,” Mr Sedimo said, adding that the lack of the report was prejudicial to the defense team’s bail application.

Mr Sedimo clarified that the defense would not be making a fresh bail application but would rather ask the court to reconsider his client’s bail, as the report had been made available to the court.

The prosecutor, Mr Pascal Mhandu, when asked by Magistrate Mmesi to explain why the defense was not served with the report despite it having been filed with the court in September, said that he was not aware that the defense had not been served.

He told the magistrate that his office was served by the police and he had assumed that they had been served as well. Thus, Magistrate Mmesi postponed the case to November 12 for a bail hearing and ordered that the defense be served with the report.

The 37-year-old Nkgarapi, a traditional healer, was previously denied bail by the same court on the grounds that the matter was still new and investigations were ongoing.

He is charged with the murder of his 47-year-old girlfriend, Magadi Mokganelwa, a University of Botswana employee, who was stabbed to death in broad daylight earlier this year. He has been further remanded in custody pending his bail application.

Prior to the murder incident, Nkgarapi was on bail for threat to kill, having threated to kill deceased.  ENDS