FRANCISTOWN: High Court Judge President Lot Moroka has sentenced Gobuamang Ntsuape to death after he was found guilty of the 2016 murder of his ex- girlfriend’s mother Sadi Kgosietsile at Block 9 here.
The 36-year-old was also sentenced to 5 years imprisonment for a single count of arson last Thursday, 15 years each for 5 counts of attempted murder (running concurrently) and 5 years for a count malicious damage to property. According to evidence before court, on 13 September 2016 the accused who hails from Sepitswana ward in Ramotswa took a bus from Gaborone to Francistown. Upon arrival he went to Engen filling station and bought 5 litres of petrol and headed to the deceased (Kgosietsile)’s house in Block 9 Francistown. He jumped on the parameter wall and entered into the yard.
Everyone was asleep and he phoned his ex-girlfriend Dorcas to establish which house she was in. He identified the house and demanded her to open the door. He warned her that it was late for her to call the police.
Dorcas who had panicked then phoned her mother who was in a separate house. Upon hearing that the accused was in the yard, the deceased (Sadi) woke her husband(Chief Mosarwa Kgosietsile) who is Dorcas’s father. The deceased and her husband decided to open the door and found their two vehicle burning as the accused had torched them with petrol. The accused approached the deceased and poured her with petrol onto her body and set her alight. He also turned to Chief Kgosietsile and also poured him with petrol lighting the matches to set him alight.
Dorcas’s three siblings had also been sleeping in a separate house which the accused had also torched and were trapped in the inferno. They were however rescued by the neighbors. All five members of the Kgosietsile family were whisked to the hospital where they were treated for burn injuries. After a couple of days, Sadi (deceased) succumbed to the injuries.
The accused was arrested and remanded in custody. According to the testimony before court, the deceased committed all these offences because his love relationship with Dorcus had ended.
In 2021 he stood for trial before High Court Judge Moroka where he was found guilty of all these offences. The accused had pleaded not guilty to all the offences.
The accused has other pending cases which arose while he was in police detention pending trial. He is currently facing two counts of murder and seven counts of attempted murder. The cases are before Francistown High Court Judge Barnabas Nyamadzabo.
The state counsel, U.L.Kabecha from the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) argued during trial that the murder of the deceased by the accused was premeditated and that the court should find him guilty as charged.
On the other hand representing the accused, defence lawyer Charles Tlagae said the accused committed the offences because he was moved by jealousy as the relationship between him and the ex-girlfriend had broken down. In part of his argument he also said that the girlfriend dumped the accused after assisting to build her a house in Tati Siding village emphasizing that jealousy was an extenuation.
According to the court papers, the accused lost his job in 2013. Dorcus supported him financially and took care of their child alone. While she lived in Francistown he followed her to her parents’ house and disposed her of the phone he had bought for her alleging that men called in her in it.
He also threatened to stab her and she reported the matter at Kutlwano Police Station in Francistown. She soon withdrew charges. In 2016 the accused got a job in Francistown and Dorcus bought a house in Tati Siding. The accused suggested to Dorcus that she move into the house to prevent vandalization and also to save money on rental. He also suggested they move in together and she refused as the house was not in a good state.
Her refusal was met with threats of violence. He objected against her receiving calls from men and without basis he accused her of cheating. He would start beating her for no reason. Despite the two visiting church for counseling sessions nothing improved. Meanwhile in June 2016, the accused had a dispute with his employers and to get at them, he set their two company cars on fire and left for Gaborone. The accused would also send him death threats messages. At some point he phoned her and asked to come and collect his clothes which were in her house in Tati Siding. Dorcus asked the police to escort her to the house where they found the accused. He collected his clothes and left.
In his unsworn evidence on extenuation, the accused added another fact through his lawyer which never arouse during trial. He claimed to have bought a car for Dorcus. The court threw away this claim as Justice Moroka said it never appeared anywhere during trial.
The Judge said this claim was just an effort by the accused to embellish his sense of loss. Justice Moroka during trial maintained that the accused never suffered any material loss from Kgosietsile family as per evidence before court.
The Defence lawyer Tlagae also argued in court on behalf of the accused that jealousy was an extenuating factor due to the fact that he lost the woman he loved. The Judge however maintained that it is clear that the murder was premeditated as per the evidence before court.
“Where jealousy was pleaded but the killing is a cold blood one, our courts have found that it cannot be an extenuating circumstance,” he said.
Sentencing the accused, the Judge said when a woman or any love partner lives through abuse at the hands of their lover and musters courage to get out of the abusive relationship and the other lover hedges a plan to kill her for daring to leave him, he cannot plead jealousy either as an extenuating circumstance of as provocation which reduces the murder to manslaughter. He said there is a difference between hot blooded murder and cold blood murder.
“The difference lies in premeditation. Therefore to endorse the view that a partner who is killed for getting out of an abusive relationship induces a sense of loss in another which justifies the killing would be to put judicial imprimatur to an illegality,” he said
“This cannot be our law. The murder of the deceased has all hallmarks of premeditation. When the deceased and her husband got out of the house, the accused poured them with petrol and lit them. In doing so he intended to kill them. That was not a hot-spur of the moment emotional burst rising out of jealousy but a cold blooded premeditated killing,” added the Judge in his ruling.
