Two men were this week arraigned before the Gaborone West Customary Court President, Kgosi Graham Hambira, charged with obstructing police officers while doing their job.
Mosimanegape Mpinya, 25, from Mochudi and a labourer at Global Holdings, and Mabotho Sekgethe, 26, from Mmankgodi, but both resident of Gaborone West, pleaded guilty to the charges of obstructing Gaborone West Police officers while doing their job at one of the sheebens on September 23, 2006, in Gaborone West.
According to the evidence presented to the Court by the State Prosecutor from Gaborone West Police Station, Constable Motsele, the court heard that the owner of the shebeen, Oteng Kabelo, reported to the Gaborone West Police that a man was misbehaving and was causing a lot of problems for his customers at his beer drinking spot.
When police showed up at the sheeben, two men, working in collusion interfered with the police officers’ duties and one of them actually slapped one of the police officers while the other also attacked the other police officer and held him by the neck.
The two police officers called members of the SSG for back up and they managed to arrest Mpinya and Sekgethe, who were quite drunk at the time.
In mitigation the two asked the court not to send them to prison because they were working and had children to look after.
Kgosi Hambira sentenced them to three strokes each.
