Four years after allegedly gunning down one Mothusinyana Sephiri in Maun’s Sanyedi Ward, Tshepiso Sebetlela, a police officer stationed at Maun Police Station, is scheduled to appear in Francistown High Court to answer to murder charges on 13th and 14th of March.
Sebetlela apparently shot and killed Sephiri in their yard after he had mistaken him for a suspect that they had been tracking from Boyei Ward on the fateful night.
After Sephiri was killed, there was an inquest to find out how he was killed and at the end of it, Maun Magistrate Clifford Foroma ruled that Sebetlela the police officer should be charged in connection for the death.
An arms expert from the Botswana Defence Force told the inquest that the officer was careless in the way he had handled the firearm on the fateful night.
In the past, the Minister of Defence and Security, Ndelu Seretse, apologized for the shooting, saying it was a tragic accident.
In related cases, recently several police officers have appeared in courts of law charged with murdering suspects during their investigations. In one of such cases, police officers are alleged to have hanged the deceased person after he had died during investigations to make it look as if he had hanged himself. Most of the cases are still ongoing.
Besides killing whilst on duty, other officers have been interdicted for various criminal activities, a thing which Botswana Police Service Public Relations officer, Senior Superintendent Christopher Mbulawa, said was worrisome.
Mbulawa said that last year alone, 42 officers were interdicted and one was dismissed from work.
