Former President Lt Gen Ian Khama cancelled a trip to his farm last week because he was worried that the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS) was planning to assassinate him.
Sunday Standard investigation have turned up a sworn statement by a Computer Forensic Examiner from the Digital Forensics Laboratory at the Botswana Police Service (BPS) suggesting that Botswana’s former strongman has spent the past few months highly paranoid and living in fear of his life.
The affidavit reveals that Khama’s decision last Thursday to cancel his trip because he was worried about a possible hit was not an isolated incident.
It emerges from the document that Khama’s fears that his life could be cut short are being stoked by questionable intel from South African agent provocateur Malcolm X.
The affidavit, deposed by Morwakena Tlhobolo, Botswana Police Service (BPS) Computer Forensic Examiner captures a private WhatsApp conversation between Khama and Justice Motlabani, spokesperson of the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) a political party that Khama founded after leaving the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP).
The WhatsApp message sent from Khama to Motlabani earlier this year provides the most candid insight yet into the former president’s persecution complex and the fear that his predecessor, President Mokgweetsi Masisi has ordered a hit on him.
Khama states the WhatsApp message: “The story is that Sisiboy told DIS to eliminate me, Kgosi, Bridgette and Malcolm X over the Butterfly issue.”
In the message, Khama claims that Masisi “does not want the truth to come out due to the embarrassment it will cause him.”He revealed that his source, believed to be Malcolm X “got this from a very reliable source in Botswana. Bridgette and he are supposed to be killed in what is supposed to look like a hijacking in their country. He reports that they have both noticed that they are being followed wherever they go. They don’t know about how they will deal with Kgosi and I because if anything happens to us too, DIS will be the prime suspects.”
It would seem that the second and third “he” (“he got this from” and “Bridgette and he”) refer to Malcolm X because no other “he” on the list of characters fits that description. Khama’s message to Motlhabani continues: “Separately from his [Malcolm X’s] info, I heard that they want to know all my engagements and where I go hence why Masisi directly appointed recently a private secretary and insisted on it who will report to them about me. He, I believe, is not aware for what purpose but will be used to inform them so they can plan something.”
The WhatsApp conversation was gleaned from Motlhabani’s phone which was confiscated by the Botswana Police Service and sent toDigital Forensics Laboratory. This is part of the police investigation after Motlhabani was charged with “publishing statements with intention to deceive persons about the COVID-19 infection”, and “use of offensive electronic communication.”
In an interview with the Sunday Standard, through Motlhabani, Khama revealed that he was in Serowe last week and had planned to visit one of his farms. He cancelled the trip on the back of an intelligence claim. “DIS have been told to monitor my movements with some intention to try something.” He had just left Serowe with his security detail, he said, and had spotted a DIS vehicle whose occupants were watching his convoy.“I have been warned not to proceed with this trip because they are up to something,” he alleged.And what could that “something” be.
By his account, it is a new DIS “trick” through which the spy agency misleads the police by providing false intelligence that links “Masisi’s opponents” to armed robberies. They lie to the police about an “armed and dangerous” fugitive driving a certain vehicle with a certain registration number, with the expectation that the police reaction unit “will, on seeing the vehicle, open fire killing the occupant and then realizing their mistake but by then it will be too late.”
The former president alleges that “this was actually attempted recently but fortunately the police recognized the occupant as someone innocent.” The source of Khama’s intelligence is believed to be Malcolm X who has in the past fed the former president questionable information about an assassination attempt on Judge President of the Court of Appeal Ian Kirby.
In the police statement made on 21st February 2019, a copy of which has been passed to the Sunday Standard, Justice Kirby stated how former President Lt Gen Ian Khama told him that the late Louis Nchindo’s sidekick, Malcolm X had informed him that “R 2 000 000 had been transferred by Louis from his HSBC Bank in London to pay for the earlier attempt on my life in Lobatse and also (presumably) for what was done to Puso.” Khama claimed that Justice Kirby’s son Boipuso “Puso” Kirby was murdered by Nchindo’s hitmen.
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