The Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has pinned its hopes on the testimony of Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) head honcho Peter Magosi in the case in which former spy chief Isaac Kgosi is accused of disclosing the identities of intelligence officers. State Prosecutor Thato Dibeela recently urged the Magistrates Court to set the matter for trial, saying the state is ready to call more witnesses, key among them Peter Magosi and the intelligence team that was monitoring Kgosi’s movements at the time. While she admitted that the state was having difficulties with the original pictures and furnishing the defence with further particulars of the offense, Dibeela insisted that they were ready to go to trial with the evidence they have. She added that the State was aware of unfair efforts by the defence team to kill the matter before trial.
The state has pinned its hopes on Magosi and the two intelligence officers who were involved in the covert operation. The two officers are expected to tell the court that Kgosi took their picture and also took pictures of their identity cards after learning that they were monitoring his movements as he went to meet construction mogul Kegone Sebina at a private clinic. When making his submissions, Kgosi’s lawyer Unoda Mack asked the Magistrate to discharge Kgosi because there was no evidence linking him to any of the charges. He argued that the officers who were instructed to monitor Kgosi were on an unlawful mission as evidence by violating Section 12 of the Intelligence Act. He added that one of the officers who was seconded from Botswana Police Services was not accredited by the DIS to take part in the operation. He added that the said officer was not under oath and did not have DIS identity therefore could not be allowed to give evidence.
He further asked the Magistrate to dismiss the matter, arguing that the two officers who were instructed to monitor Kgosi’s movement were involved in an unlawful operation. Mack also said the State had failed to bring evidence of the original pictures but relied on blurred pictures from Mmegi newspaper. He argued that the Mmegi pictures could not be allowed as evidence as the pictures could have been manufactured by computer software just to implicate Kgosi.‘ ’Don’t refer us to a newspaper, because maybe it has used computer software to generate those blurred pictures,’’ said Mack. He further argued that the forensic evidence given by the Botswana Police Services had absolved Kgosi from any wrong doing as the device that he was using was not linked to the non-existent pictures.
