A year written in blood: Reflection from the Magistrate’s court
Larona Makhaiza | Monday December 22, 2025 06:00
Reporting from the Magistrate’s court in 2025 revealed a troubling picture of a country grappling with extreme violence, where some cases ended not with verdicts but funerals. Although public perception may suggest otherwise, only two murder accused persons died before their cases could be concluded, where a 28-year-old woman, Kelebelle Babantsho from Old Naledi and Paul Matonko, a man living with albinism from Ramotswa, were killed.
Babantsho was facing a murder charge for stabbing her boyfriend, Maatla Merakeng, to death in his sleep. She was later killed by her friend whilst on bail after a fight.
Murder accused Matonko suffered the same fate, as he was killed following a scuffle with his relatives, Thatayaone Nokane (28), Virginia Nokane (48) and Sylvia Moemi (50) for allegedly raping their cousin. Yet their deaths symbolically underscored a disturbing reality; even those already within the justice system were not insulated from the violence they were accused of committing.
Babantsho and Matonko cases were closed not by judicial determination but by death, thus denying both victims’ families and the accused any form of legal closure.
As the two never had their day in the trial court, the two accused persons died as both an innocent lady and a gentleman.
Beyond these harrowing cases where death overshadowed justice, this years’ bloodshed unfolded largely outside the accused’s dock, but it flooded into the courts. This includes the Kgomokasitwa massacre, where a Botswana Defence Force Soldier, Moagi Mokomeng, is alleged to have wiped off three Ramolala family members. Mokomeng is facing a total of nine charges, inclusive of the three murders of Elizabeth Ramolala, Alefha Ramolala, and Katlego Ramolala from the Kgomokasitwa. Other charges include attempted murders of Happy Ramolala, Thabo Dibotelo, arson and malicious property damage.
He allegedly intended to wipe off the Ramolala family from the surface of the earth to bury his rape case against a young woman from the Ramolala family. When such cases arrive before the Magistrates’ court before they are committed to the High Court, the courtroom becomes a place of collective grief as much as a legal process, with the weight of loss hanging heavier than the law books on the bench.
The justice system was further shaken by cases involving those meant to uphold and enforce the law. Two Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) spy agents found themselves on the wrong side of the law. The appearance of the DIS agent Oteng Keraamang from a police shootout case at GSS grounds cast doubt on public confidence and raised difficult questions about accountability and the misuse of power by DIS agents.
Keraamang was implicated in the case as he is alleged to have laundered P40 000 that led to the police shootout.
Just when the institution thought it could not get anymore worse for them, DIS came under public scrutiny when a DIS director in logistics (names withheld) was charged for allegedly raping his own daughter (names withheld).
The agent is accused of having raped his own daughter on numerous occasions at their homestead in Block 10. But the Regional Magistrate Mareledi Dipate has since granted him bail. These cases reminded the nation that no institution is immune to moral collapse, more especially since Director General of the DIS Peter Magosi’s declaration that the institution hires criminals.
Week after week, the Magistrate’s court became a repository of human tragedy of domestic disputes that escalated into murder of unresolved conflicts ending in bloodshed and lives lost senselessly. While most accused lived to face the law, the volume and severity of murder cases painted a picture of society under strain, where violence had become all too frequent. As the year closes, the lesson from the Magistrates’ court is sobering, even with only two murder accused persons dying before trial, the scale of violence, mass killings, and institutional betrayal earned this year its reputation as a bloodbath.