Killer ex-cop to hang
Pini Bothoko | Monday May 1, 2023 06:00
Justice Lot Moroka of the Francistown High Court in 2021 sentenced Mojanki, a former Botswana Police Service (BPS) officer, to death for murdering his ex-girlfriend, Socks who was a former nurse at the Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital.
Subsequently the CoA bench dismissed Mojanki’s appeal citing that the High Court’s finding of no extenuating circumstances was accurate. Handing down judgement on Wednesday, Justice Lakhvinder Singh Walia said the circumstances of court of quo came to the correct conclusion when finding that there were no extenuating circumstances and sentenced the accused person to death.
“Mojanki deceived Socks into going for a drive and in a secluded area, took her life in a brutal attack, tried to set her alight and left her at the mercy of the elements and scavenging animals.
The judge a quo dealt at length with each argument on extenuating circumstances placed before him, considered it fully and came to the conclusion that no extenuating circumstances existed,” Walia said. Sentencing Mojanki to death back in 2021, Justice Lot Moroka explained that there was ample evidence uncontroverted evidence before the court that showed that Mojanki was abusive towards Socks in their relationship. To illustrate that, Moroka stated that the first prosecution witness testified that Socks told her that she had on countless occasions reported Mojanki for abusing her at the Francistown Police Station where Mojanki was stationed to no avail.
Furthermore, Moroka said that after Socks reported Mojanki at Francistown Police Station, Mojanki would later come home with the report record and boisterously tear it up in front of Socks telling her that she was just wasting her time reporting him. Then, Moroka was in stark contrast to the love that Mojanki professed to have had towards Socks.
He said that assuming that Mojanki loved Socks just like he claimed even though there is evidence to the contrary, Mojanki could not have mustered the courage to murder Socks for merely telling him that she was impregnated by another man. Addressing the above evidence, Walia stated that the communities that constitute the nation of Botswana do not accept as a norm that the loss of a partner to another person is a licence to kill.
Moreover, he said a woman in an abusive relationship cannot be trapped in it out of fear that should she leave she would die and courts would hold her death to be justifiable passion killing. “In this case, everything points to a carefully planned killing of the deceased. Mojanki had concealed a knife to complete the deed but when stabbing failed, he bludgeoned the deceased to death with a stone and attempted to set her alight. I cannot conceive of a more obvious case of pre-meditation,” he said.
Walia further stated that as for Mojanki’s alleged emotional stress there was absolutely no evidence of it before the court a quo. He stated that such stress or depression as Mojanki might have been under was only manifest after his remand in custody. He stated that Mojanki’s counsel had raised one extenuating factor that he was aggrieved by his lover being pregnant by another man. “This submission is entirely without substance. There is no evidence of the deceased’ pregnancy. Not only had Mojanki’s evidence been rejected as false beyond reasonable doubt, the question of pregnancy had not arisen at any stages of the proceedings.
None of the deceased’s relatives testifying in court was confronted with any allegations of the pregnancy. The relationship between Mojanki and Socks had ended back in October 2013 and she was no longer his lover,” Walia said. Justice Walia further stated that Mojanki has moved on because the nature of his relationship with Constable Nnewe was not a secret because he had been using her car and had married her not long after Socks’death. He added that there was nothing to suggest that Mojanki had any intentions of leaving his wife to resume a relationship with the deceased.
Walia also explained that it was very clear that Mojanki was the last person who was with Socks before she met her death and the manner in which he took her life appears in graphic detail in his confession to the pastor. He stated that there was evidence that Mojanki arrived alone at Galo Mall where he ordered a meal but only after Socks met with him he told Socks to pick up the order because he did not want to be seen with her that fateful day. He said that explained that Mojanki did with a clear intention of not wanting to be seen with Socks on that day in order to cover up his tracks. Mojanki is to hang by the neck until he dies.