Gale Ngakane
17 April 2008
Francistown — Acting chief magistrate, Lorraine Makati-Lesang ruled this week that a man who was brought to court to answer a charge of threat to kill is a victim of mistaken identity.
Hence Phukie Bokowe was immediately discharged and acquitted after a prosecution witness, Detective Inspector Ernest Ngwigwa admitted he is lying when under grilling by attorney Lyndon Mothusi.
The policeman must have felt like a punch-drunk boxer following a blistering attack on his credibility as a witness by Mothusi who at one stage asked him if he drank milk. Ngwigwa replied in the negative, which made even Makati-Lesang to interject and ask whether he meant he was never breast-fed as a baby. He said he never visited the scene of the crime. This made Mothusi to ask why and how he came to be a state witness in the first place.
"You were never at the scene of crime, you do not know whether it is a cattle-post, a desert or what. That diminishes the quality of the veracity of your report," the lawyer charged.
Bokowe was hauled before court after four people of European descent reported to the police that a man pointed a gun at them saying they were not supposed to be where they were. The incident allegedly happened on September 30, 2000 when John Carr Hartley, Matthew Hutchings, Brian Bridges and his wife, Gwendolene Bridges picked a spot in the Nata-Gweta area for a picnic.
Apparently, the noise they were creating attracted the attention of Bokowe who found the quartet on his property and ordered them to leave.
An argument must have arisen resulting in insults being traded. But it is not known whether a threat to kill was made or a gun was pointed at anybody because Mothusi discredited a transcript of the tape that the four said they switched on while conversing with Bokowe.
The lawyer took issue with a number of facts. First, he wondered why the four travelled all the way to Gaborone to report the matter. Second he queried why the report was made in 2006 though the incident occurred in 2000. Another issue was the make of the vehicle that Bokowe was driving on the day. The witnesses, especially Hutchings, could not remember whether it was a Toyota Hilux or a Nissan pick-up van. In his statement, Hartley said the vehicle was a Nissan while Gwendolene Bridges said it was a Hilux.
In the end, Makati-Lesang totally agreed with Mothusi that Bokowe had no case to answer as the evidence of witnesses were riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies.
Meanwhile on Tuesday, a 60-year-old grandmother of Nata, Grace Dick was found guilty of unlawful possession of dagga weighing 77.3grams. She was charged P500 to be paid before April 30, failing which she will go to prison for six months. David Moloise represented her in the case before Makati-Lesang. The case has been pending since 2005.
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