19 Feb 2014

Three of the five men charged with the murder of a night watchman at Gaborone North Farms last year, will remain in custody pending bail application at the High Court. The other two men are already on bail.  

During their routine mention to update the court on the progress of the case, one of the accused, Phemelo Tshelang, complained  that the police had not yet assisted him with transport to go and take his medical cards from his home in Oodi.

He said although the police had on several occasions promised that they would ensure they facilitated his travel to Oodi, they had never honoured their promise. However the prosecutor, Sub Inspector Galekhutle Mashumba of Sir Seretse Khama Airport Police Station (SSKA) said they were willing to assist but had acute shortage of transport.

“Your worship even this morning the accused were brought here with a Mochudi police vehicle. We could also not risk bringing them in an open vehicle… transporting a remand on an open vehicle from Gaborone to Oodi would be too risky a chance to take,” he told the court.

Sub-Inspector Galekhutle Mashumba said they were still willing to assist and would see to it the accused was assisted should one of their vehicles at CTO become available this week.

Meanwhile, he said police investigations were still ongoing. He explained that they were also awaiting the postmortem report.    After going through their bail arguments late last year Chief Magistrate Linah Oahile-Mokibe said the court had satisfied itself that the three accused being Lebang Thabo Ntesi, Tshelang and Mpho Mangwa had criminal cases before and were a danger to the society as argued by the state.

Magistrate Oahile-Mokibe, noted that Ntesi had previous conviction for a charge of common theft while Tshelang had a previous charge of robbery and house breaking. Mangwa on the other hand is still facing charges of burglary and theft as well as of common theft. The three have since been advised to apply for bail at the high court after their request was turned down.

The five men, who are all residents of Oodi, on the night of August 28, 2013 at Gaborone North Farms acting together and with a common purpose murdered one Olebogeng Ramapulane, who was said to have been on duty as a night watchman. On the second count, the five men have been charged with the attempted murder of Liu Jian Hui, still at the same farms on the same day. 

During the attempt on his life, Hui was seriously injured and was admitted at Princess Marina Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit for some time.

Police managed to recover some items believed to have been stolen during commission of the offence. They recovered a lap top, documents and P15 280 cash belonging to the injured man. Police were contemplating adding a third charge of armed robbery. The next mention is on February 28, 2014. Ends