'Cousin slayer' goes on trial
Innocent Selatlhwa | Tuesday June 20, 2023 06:00
Tsametse allegedly slit his cousin’s throat to claim insurance money which he used to buy a car and a cellphone
On March 5, 2018, The Monitor broke a story of a 16-year-old Ledumadumane Junior Secondary School Form 2 student who lost his life under mysterious circumstances.
The then Mogoditshane Police Station commander, Superintendent Agreement Mapeu said: “It appears the boy was murdered on Friday night. We received a call in the wee hours of the morning from a passerby only to find him in a pool of blood with a stab wound on his neck not far from Mogoditshane Senior School. He was taken to Nkoyaphiri Clinic where he was certified dead,” he said.
Arnold Kitso Fortune Ofentse, who hails from Tumasera, was found under a huge Morula tree about 200 metres from Mogoditshane Senior Secondary School after telling his cousins that he was going to charge his phone at a neighbour’s house.
Narrating the story to The Monitor team at her home in Mogoditshane Block 5, his aunt Agnes Ofentse said she received an unusual call from the Mogoditshane Police Station at around 3:30am on Saturday.
“They asked me if I knew anyone using a Nokia phone, which I denied. They then asked if all my children were home to which I affirmed. They then told me to come to the police (station) at 7am.
I was worried and woke the children up to tell them about my phone call. They told me Fortune was not home stating that he left around 10pm saying he was going to charge his phone at the neighbours’ and he never returned,” she said.
On March 13, 2018, Thato Tsametse who is Agnes’ son who stayed elsewhere was brought into police custody for questioning over the alleged murder of Ofentse. This was after he made P50,000-worth of claims from Botswana Life where he had allegedly insured Ofentse’s life under two Mmoloki Funeral policies.
He was taken in for questioning and later released. He was arrested once again seven days later.
The court heard that Tsametse was reported to the police by two different traditional healers who he had allegedly approached seeking mystical powers to protect him from facing the wrath of the law for killing his cousin.
It is alleged that Tsametse confessed to the healers that he killed Ofentse and wanted them to use their powers to keep him from being prosecuted. After being denied bail four times at both the Magistrate’s and the High Court, Tsametse was finally granted bail by Broadhurst Magistrate Tshepo Thedi on July 31, 2018. Despite the prosecution’s plea not to grant Tsametse bail on account of having already confessed to the traditional doctors, Thedi set him free on condition that he paid P5,000 cash and provided two sureties who would pay P1,000 each.
In one of the interviews with this publication, the deceased’s brother, Marks Ofentse, popularly known as ‘Kganka’ in the music industry said his brother was brought to Gaborone when he did not know. “They brought my brother to Gaborone without my knowledge, and just after I made my intentions of taking him to stay with me he got killed,” he said. Kganka said he had not been talking to his aunt Agnes for over five years. He said she would not even tell him that his brother was late as he found out from a newspaper three days later. John Ofentse, a family representative and uncle to the accused and the deceased, said the family was mad at Agnes and the accused who happens to be her son and did not want to see them ever again. “We are shocked, we are scared of them. We hope he will not be granted bail as we do not know what more he will do to us,” he said.
He broke down in tears when speaking of how the nephew was taken to Gaborone without his knowledge. “It breaks my heart when I remember that he was supposed to live with me but Agnes took him without my consent. It was agreed that he would come to stay with me in Palapye and I was surprised to learn that he was taken to Gaborone to stay with Agnes. We do not ever want to see her set foot at our home in Tumasera,” he said.
The trial begins this week with six state witnesses expected to take the stand in court.