The late John Kalafatis’ friend, Ray Gare, this week spoke out for the first time about an alleged homosexual video featuring a state personality that he is believed to be hiding. Speaking to the Sunday Standard from New Zealand where he has migrated, Gare said he was aware that a contingent of intelligence officers has been despatched to track him down to recover an alleged homosexual video that involves a state personality, but has brushed the mission off as a wild goose chase.
“I have nothing to do with what they want” said Gare questioning the wisdom of deploying security agents to New Zealand to track him down in an effort to retrieve the laptop that was allegedly stolen by the late Kalafatis from a house in Phakalane in 2009. “I heard about it. What are they going to find that they failed to find during their investigations before they executed John?” Gare asked rhetorically in response to Sunday Standard queries and his first ever local media interview after emigrating to New Zealand in 2010. At the height of the John Kalafatis trial in which four Botswana Defence Force (BDF) personnel were convicted of his murder, Gare, who was supposed to be a key witness, emigrated to New Zealand with his Australian fianc├®e, Violet Grosse in 2010.
He was supposed to have testified but only his written statement was admitted as evidence. Asked if he was in possession of the alleged homosexual video or if he was writing a book about what led to Kalafatis’ ‘execution’ by Botswana Defence Force (BDF) officers in 2009, Gare answered in the negative. “I have nothing to do with what they want,” he said. It is understood that intelligence sources sympathetic to Gare had informed him that he was suspected of being in possession of the laptop or knew something about its whereabouts hence his decision to migrate to New Zealand. At one point, Gare was rumoured to have been denied a visa into Australia only to later be granted a visa by New Zealand authorities.
Fresh information has also emerged that Gare is the suspected author of a book detailing the reasons behind the execution of Kalafatis.
“The hunt for the author of the book that is expected to open a can worms and the laptop that allegedly has a video of high profile people participating in a same-sex orgy has been going on for quite some time. It is only that it was publicised recently,” said a highly placed security source.
The source said it is believed that Kalafatis stole the laptop from Allen West’s House in Phakalane in 2009. It is also understood that Kalafatis could have made copies and given them to some of his friends.
“There are also suspicions that he might have given some to his younger brother Costa, hence the recent shooting,” said the source.
The source claimed intelligence officers suspected that John was in possession of the original copies hence the decision to eliminate him.
But later, according to the source, it was discovered that the original material was with Gare who had fled to New Zealand with the laptop containing the controversial sex video. The Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) Director, Isaac Kgosi and the Minister of Justice Defence and Security Ramadeluka Seretse were not available for comment. Our source insisted this week that the intelligence team was still in New Zealand. Kalafatis family’s lawyer Dick Bayford was recently quoted in the media saying that the events were triggered when it was suspected that the late John Kalafatis stole a laptop from one Allen West’s residences in Phakalane.
The said laptop is said to have contained sexually explicit visuals involving multiple male characters performing sexual acts on and with each other. One of the performers is said to be a prominent state personality. This information, according to Bayford was revealed to him by a source who works as a state security agent.
“Based on the source of my information which I believe is credible, I believe the laptop exists or has existed before,” Bayford told The Botswana Gazette.
Bayford also added that rumour has it that the recent shooting of Costa was perpetuated by the belief that his late brother had left the laptop in his care, since it had in fact never been located. John Kalafatis’ father died early this year after battling with injuries that he sustained following an incident in which he was assaulted by four men at his workshop in Mogoditshane in May last year.?Meanwhile the killers of John Kalafatis, Gotshosamang Sechele, Ronny Matako and Boitshoko Maifala are free men after President Ian Khama issued a presidential pardon. They were set free after serving only a few months of their 11 years jail sentence. The three men were jointly charged alongside their fellow BDF member, Dzikamani Mothobi, who was acquitted of the murder of John Kalafatis in May 2009.
