State yet to file plea in German suit
Mpho Mokwape | Monday May 22, 2023 06:00
Following his lawsuit filed on February 27, 2023, the State allegedly responded by requesting for further and better particulars in relation to the matter that German said he was arrested and detained without warrant by the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS).
All the respondents in the suit cited from the Attorney General, DIS, DCEC and more players after entering an appearance to defend the suit were supposed to file plea within 14 days but did not do so but instead requested that German's attorneys furnish them with better particulars for the suit.
“As of now we are still awaiting their plea, they have requested for further and better particulars and we have just responded to such,” said German's attorney, Martin Dingake.
German, who is seeking payment for damages amounting to P658, 699 was investigating the DIS Director General (DG) Peter Magosi, Permanent Secretary to the President (PSP), Emma Peloetletse and Acting DCEC DG, Tshepho Pilane when he was arrested without a warrant on June 8, 2022. He was arrested by the DIS officers and he is also suing Steven Mafuta, Lefoko Nkwane, Goitseone Esely and Paul Setlhabi. As a result of the arrest and detention, German says he endured pain and suffering as well as injury to his reputation and lost his liberty without just cause as a result of the unlawful conduct of the said officers.
The four DIS officers are cited as actual actors who effected the unlawful arrest and detention of German at the Sebele DIS offices. He said his arrest and detention was beyond the agents’ limit of their power and scope of operation and/or duty. According to the suit filed before the High Court by German’s lawyers, Dingake Law Partners, the four DIS officers acted jointly during German’s detention at the Urban Police station from June 8, 2022 until he was released on June 10, 2022.
In the court papers, German revealed that he was during his detention also hauled to the DIS offices in Sebele at the instance of the aforesaid intelligence officers and various other DIS officers, whose names and ranks are unknown to him. He explained that the four DIS agents were acting within the course and scope of their employment as DIS officers and that on June 8, 2022, at around 6am when he was leaving his house intending to go to work, he was confronted by officers of the DIS, Mafuta, Nkwane, Esely and Setlhabi.
The four DIS officers are said to have asked German to accompany them to their Sebele offices to assist them with something which they did not disclose but stated that he would be informed about it at their office. “I then informed the DIS officers that I was taking my children to school thus I would not accompany them to their office and that if the DIS really wanted my assistance it should had gone through the DCEC,” he said. However, German pointed out that a certain Nkwane then informed him that he was under arrest despite not showing any warrant of arrest and as such he was forced to go with the officers to the DIS office at Sebele.
“No reasons were advanced for the arrest. I was immediately escorted by armed DIS officers, first to drop my children at school, and then to the Sebele DIS, offices,” he noted in his court papers. German now wants relief in the sum of P150,000 for unlawful arrest, detention and P500,000 for unlawful search and seizure, and invasion of privacy.
He also requests payment of P8,699 being money for the unlawful seizure of a military green bag worth P800, Nokia phone worth P399, Samsung Galaxy phone worth P6,500 and a Samsung S7 tablet worth P1,000. He also says he wants 10% interest thereon from June 8, 2022 to the date of full and final payment.
German is an attorney duly admitted as such to practise before the High Court and other courts of Botswana. Until October 10 2022, he was deployed at the DCEC as a Senior Assistant Director, Legal Services Division, but was transferred with immediate effect on October 10, 2022 by PSP Peloetletse to the office of the AG under the International and Commercial Division as Chief State Counsel. Meanwhile, the State is not only dealing with German’s suit but has few other lawsuits from those that were part of the investigating team tasked by the DCEC investigating the likes of DIS boss, Magosi. Suspended DCEC boss Tymon Katlholo and another officer Tsholofelo Bareetsi are also suing the State respectively.