DIS torture lawsuit reaches court
Oarabile Mosikare | Wednesday August 20, 2014 12:06
The plaintiff, Phillip Tlhage, is suing the spy agency for P2.9 million. In his court papers dated March 26, 2014, Tlhage, through his lawyer Kabo Motswagole of Monthe Marumo and Company, says he has been waiting months for the delivery and service of the defendants’ plea.
The respondents’ failure to deliver their plea, Tlhage says, means his matter cannot be brought to finality. “I am of the view that the above Honourable Court should enter the scene and bring the matter to finality,” Tlhage says in the case before Justice Abednico Tafa. In his declaration, Tlhage accuses the DIS agents and Kgosi of arresting him and harassing over remarks he allegedly made regarding the infamous cheetah attack on President Ian Khama.
Tlhage wants compensation and cites the Attorney General, Athaliah Molokomme, Kgosi, the Police Commissioner and two other operatives as defendants.
According to his complaint, Tlhage alleges that DIS agents arrested him on the afternoon of April 29, 2013 and took him to a facility under their control where he was detained for nine hours.
He claims he was repeatedly threatened with physical violence and the officers of the DIS continuously told him that they had all his personal information which they could use in any manner they deemed fit.
“Although I was not convicted of any offence, I was fingerprinted, had my photo taken, was made to feel like a criminal and was repeatedly accused of being a threat to national security and the government of the day,” he said.
“Members of the DIS, specifically Kgosi and the two agents took turns interrogating, taunting, denigrating and threatening me with torture and violence saying that if I did not tell them what I had said about the President they had ‘mechanisms’ which could make me talk. They said they would not hesitate to use them on me if I did not talk.”
Tlhage argues that the treatment amounted to “unlawful arrest, unlawful detention, torture and inhuman and degrading treatment and ... abuse of power,” since he had not committed any crime but rather had only made utterances about the President which were not “unlawful”.
He further maintains that the remarks he made “are permissible and/or protected as part of freedom of expression and/or permissible in a democratic society such as Botswana”. Tlhage claims that after the DIS incident, he was later “unlawfully” detained at the Sir Seretse Khama Airport Police Station for 30 hours. He is demanding compensation from the police as well for their alleged collaboration with the DIS.
Tlhage’s five claims include P450,000 for breach of constitutionally protected rights, P750,000 and P500,000 for unlawful arrest by DIS, P750,000 for unlawful detention by police and P500,000 for what he calls “delictual damages for breach of a statutory duty”.