President Mokgweetsi Masisi went into hiding last week after it emerged that there was a plan to assassinate him.
The president’s official aircraft, the OK 1 en route to Maputo, Mozambique was forced to make a u-turn mid air on Tuesday following intelligence that would be assassins were waiting in Mozambique to strike on him.
President Masisi who was accompanied by the Minister of Green Technology and Energy Security Eric Molale, the Chief of Protocol John Moreti and his Senior Private Secretary Berzac Maphakwane was scheduled to speak at the 12th US-Africa Business Summit in Maputo.
After government media journalist Phenyo Moalusi filed a report on June 18th that President Masisi had left for Mozambique there was an immediate official media black-out on the president’s schedule. The President’s advance party which included his press corps, his security and other government officials were left in the dark about why the president’s jet never landed in Maputo.
Permanent Secretary to the President Carter Morupisi confirmed to the Sunday Standard that President Masisi’s aircraft left Sir Seretse Khama airport last Tuesday but never landed in Maputo as scheduled. Morupisi would however not be drawn into discussing details that Masisi’s security had been tipped off about a plan to assassinate him in Maputo. “Those are security issues and as an ordinary person I am not privy to such information”, he told the Sunday Standard.
Investigations by the Sunday Standard have revealed that after cancelling his Maputo assignment, Masisi and his team went into hiding at his farm in Sekoma and only emerged on Thursday. The Sunday Standard can further reveal that a group of Batswana have been meeting in South Africa where the assassination was plotted and a down payment of USD2.6 million was deposited into the account of a would be assassin with strict instructions that Masisi’s death should look like death by “natural causes.”
Sunday Standard investigations have turned up scanty information that a weaponised unmanned aerial vehicle (UAVs) commonly referred to as a drone was to be used in the strike against Masisi.
The Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services Director General Brigadier Peter Magosi could not be reached for comment at the time of going to press. The Sunday Standard made several attempts to reach him through his official mobile phone between Tuesday and Saturday morning when the paper went to press. The phone of Botswana’s High Commissioner to Mozambique Gobe Pitso also rang unanswered.
