BY PHINEAS THOBEGA
Twenty-three year old Ositang Obakeng, a student at Gaborone Technical College, left the Gaborone Customary Court in tears after he was sentenced to four strokes for assaulting his ex-girlfriend at Phase 4 in Gaborone.
Obakeng, from Herero Ward, pleaded not guilty to the charges of assault common after being charged for assaulting his ex-girlfriend, Mosetsana Ntseng from Kgamane Ward in Serowe.
When given a chance to defend himself, Obakeng told Gaborone West Deputy Customary Court President, Kgosi Aron Setshwane, how he called his girlfriend from his mobile phone and asked her if he could visit her at Phase 4 where she was staying with her elder sister. Ntseng told him to come over, he said. But when he got there, he was told that their affair was long dead.
Later, he bade her farewell but the ex-girlfriend asked him to stay for the night since it was late night. He accepted the offer, he said, but late in the night two men came looking for Ntseng who woke up to make tea for her visitors.
“I followed her into the kitchen and she told me to go back to the school campus but I told her I could not do that because it was too late and I was scared.”
Obakeng said it was then that Ntseng started to fight him and tried to scald him with hot tea and water.
“She slapped me several times and hit me against the wall and I retaliated by beating her up. I grabbed her by her human hair and her hair just came off into my hands then her two boyfriends came to me and ordered me to stop fighting her.”
‘He pulled me by my human hair until he removed my hair from my head’ says ex-girlfriend,
Ntseng told the court that the accused used to be her boyfriend but they separated after having misunderstandings. She said Obakeng refused to leave her house and started to fight her after he saw her new boyfriend.
State Prosecutor from Gaborone West Police Station, Constable Daniel Segare, told the court when giving evidence that the Obakeng was not supposed to assault Ntseng and produced the hospital papers, along with the human hair pulled off Mosetsana head, as part of the evidence.
Before passing the sentence Kgosi Setshwane told the court that the accused did not plead guilty to the charges but his court found him guilty. He sentenced him to four strokes on the bum.
