Friday, February 7, 2025

Magistrate to give judgment in lawyer’s fraud case

Gaborone Chief Magistrate Lot Moroka will on the 30 of March deliver judgment in a case in which former lawyer, Lyndon Mothusi, is accused of attempting to bribe a prison warden, Akofang Moasetso, to induce him to obtain a prison docket for him from the Kasane Prison.

In his final submissions, Kgosi Ngakayagae, the Principal Prosecutor at the Directorate of Public Prosecution, urged Moroka to convict Mothusi saying that they had proved their case against Mothusi beyond reasonable doubt.
Ngakayagae said that they had well established the connection between Mothusi and the file, which Mothusi denies having anything to do with, in that they had brought a witness, Moasetso, who was the person who made arrangements to have the file inserted with names and removed from Kasane to Gaborone.

He submitted that the names that were inserted were those of persons he wants the Court to believe had once visited Phillip Malekane, then prisoner at Kasane jail. The names were of Zolile Makonfane and David Mathaile.
Moasetso also told the Court that he had done that on instructions from Mothusi who had promised to reward him handsomely for the job.

He also submitted that it could not honestly be said to have been a coincidence that the file, which Mothusi, through his former lawyer Tengo Rubadiri, introduced in Court, had appeared in Court mysteriously just when Mothusi and his lawyer wanted it in order to show the existence of Makonfane, who Mothusi had failed to bring to Court to prove his existence.

Evidence that proves that there was nobody by the name of Makonfane, Ngakakayagae said, was abundant in that witnesses who gave evidence in Court, in the likes of Philemon Malekane, who was in jail in Kasane, and who Mothusi wants the Court to believe was once visited in jail by Makonfane in Kasane, denied ever being visited by Mokonfane or even knowing any person by that name.
Another witness, David Mathaile, also claimed that he did not know any person by that name.

Mafonkane, he said, was central to Mothusi’s story in that he had alleged in the first case where he was charged and found guilty of fraud that the money he was accused of having obtained fraudulently was paid by him (Mafonkane) for legal services rendered to him.

Ngakayagae, however, admitted that there were contradictions in the evidence of Moasetso, which he said were minor and not major as claimed by the defence.

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