Broadhurst Magistrate, Gaseitsewe Tonoki, is on 20 March expected to pass judgment in a case in which a Russian citizen, Seguei Pastouchenko, was convicted of defiling an underage girl between 2005 and 2008.
The judgment will follow after his lawyer, Fashole Luke, on Friday pleaded with the Magistrate not to pass a custodial sentence on his client whom he says was ill and required a special diet, which has been specified by a medical doctor.
He also complained that the prisons authorities have so far failed to give his client the food prescribed for him. Luke also pleaded with the Magistrate not to give his client a custodial sentence but to give him a chance to rehabilitate and join society again.
Luke told the Magistrate that his client had two elderly parents being his mother, who is 70, and a 71-year-old father to look after.
Besides his parents, he said that his client has two children, aged four and two, to look after.
When judgment was postponed to next Friday, some of the audiences were overheard complaining that the case was continuously postponed and that they do not know if judgment will ever be passed next Friday as promised.
“I wonder if judgment on this case will be made. It is always being postponed. First, it was supposed to be this morning then it was postponed to the afternoon, now this again,” complained one of the attendees, who identified herself only as a relative of the girl who was molested.
But the whistle blower in the case, who informed the police on the Russian who was molesting the young girl, intervened and explained to the worried relative that the Magistrate needs time to study the record in order to come out with a perfect judgment.
“We want this man to be sent away to jail for as long as possible , so let the Magistrate go and study the case and come back with a water tight judgment that will not be overturned in the High Court,” explained the whistle blower, who says she has never missed a single day of the trial and would like to see justice taking its course on the man.
This is not the only charges the Russian is facing in the country. The day before his judgment is passed, he is expected to appear for mention in another Gaborone Court in a fraud case. In this case, Pastouchenko is alleged to have, last year in December, manipulated the software of electronic gambling machines using his loyalty personal card numbers in order for the machine to double his cash of P8,000 without playing a gambling game. The offence is alleged to have taken place at Gaborone’s luxurious Grand Palm Hotel.
The case has since been adjourned in order for the state to get the services of a gambling machine expert from South Africa to give evidence.
