Former President Lt Gen Ian Khama has brough in his lawyers, Botswana Police Service (BPS) and is in the process of compiling a report for his international sleuth-hounds to investigate allegations of a plot to assassinate him.
This follows allegations by a Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) activist Tumisang Setumbeko against the Minister of Finance and Economic Development Dr. Thapelo Matsheka.
Setumbeko is peddling a conspiracy theory that Matsheka, who is Lobatse MP, hatched a plot to “destroy and finish” Khama and some other people. In service of his campaign, he recorded two video clips and posted them to Facebook. Khama has now reacted to these allegations by stating that he finds the claim credible because they confirm what he has himself been alleging for all of last year: that there is a plot by the Directorate of the Intelligence and Security Services, which has been authorised by President Mokgweetsi Masisi, to assassinate him.
“I have carried out preliminary investigations into this claim,” Khama said on Thursday. “They suggest it needs to be followed up. I have instructed my lawyers to pursue this with the police as I believe it warrants investigation. I hear since he put out the video, the police have been told to take him in.”
Having first engaged a high-profile British lawyer to exonerate him in the “Butterfly” case, Khama has once more cast his eye outside Botswana (perhaps outside the continent) to investigate allegations of a plot to assassinate him.
From what Sunday Standard learns, a report about the claims is being compiled and when complete, will he handed over to an international agency to carry out investigations.
For now, at least, Khama is keeping his cards very close to the chest because despite our best efforts, he wouldn’t reveal the name of the international agency that will carry out the investigations
To the question of whether he finds Setumbeko’s allegations credible, Khama’s response was that “based on what has been happening, anything is possible.” What has been happening is that for much of 2020, Khama has been getting what he believes to be credible intelligence about a DISS plot to assassinate him.
It turns out that while the former president and now opposition politician has reason to believe that Setumbeko’s claims are credible, he has also not seen any evidence that establishes such credibility. There is a qualification to that statement though: while Setumbeko, whom Khama says he doesn’t know, hasn’t shared any evidence with him personally, he has shared such evidence with some of Khama’s acquaintances.
“They tell me it is credible,” says Khama about what his sources told him about the quality of Setumbeko’s evidence.
On the strength of his convictions, Khama has instructed his lawyers to report Setumbeko’s allegations to the police “whatever that is worthwhile I pursue my own investigations which, if anything comes of it, I will make public.”
Initially, Setumbeko accused Matsheka of reneging on a deal they made during the 2019 campaign season. In terms of the alleged deal, Matsheka was to pay him P50 000 to help his campaign. The assassination charges represent an escalation.
In the video message, which is directed at “Batswana”, Setumbeko says the following: “I will die very soon but want to tell you the truth. Please ask Mr. Matsheka and his team to explain to Batswana his agenda to destroy and finish Ian Khama by the day he attended Kamal Jacobs’ launch. There was a plan to destroy and finish Ian Khama – he is the who can explain to you. I have rejected to join all this: I am out of dirty and unclean things; I am a normal person.”
Jacobs contested against Matsheka in the Botswana Democratic Party primary elections, lost, appealed the outcome at the High Court, lost again, quit the party to contest as an independent candidate and lost to Matsheka for the second time in the general election. In November last year, Jacobs joined the Botswana National Front.
In another, much longer (2:49) clip, Setumbeko alleges that he was “ordered” to poison some people”, whom he later identifies as Jacobs and Jomo Dithebe, a specially elected BDP councilor in the Lobatse Town Council. He refused, he says, finding true north courtesy of the deep Christian faith he professes.
