Murder accused suspected to have fled back to SA

Chakalisa Dube | Friday October 31, 2014 15:43

Two police officers that spoke to Mmegi on condition of anonymity yesterday, said Samotse might have once again fled to South Africa (SA) where he initially went into hiding after killing his girlfriend in Francistown, nearly three years ago.

Samotse escaped from Nyangabwe Referral Hospital a week ago, where he was admitted under the guard of prison officials.

It had been just a few weeks since his deportation to Botswana.

However, after a long but futile search around the city and surrounding areas, Superintendent Lebalang Maniki, station commander at Central Police Station, yesterday revealed there were no leads that could assist in Samotse’s re-arrest.

 “However, our preliminary investigations show that he is not in South Africa that is why we are yet to engage Interpol Gaborone on the matter,” he said.

Maniki, however, said if information from their investigations suggest that Samotse has fled to the neighbouring country, they will not hesitate to engage Interpol Gaborone to assist them return him to Botswana.

“We are also still investigating how he escaped while under the close guard of prison officials at the hospital,” Maniki said.

Three years ago Samotse killed his then 20-year old girlfriend and fled to SA. He was subsequently arrested by SA police but could not be sent to Botswana because the latter would not give assurance that Samotse would not be executed if found guilty.

The SA Department of Home Affairs later deported Samotse to Botswana from Polokwane Prison to Botswana without the assurance.  But the SA government has since claimed that there was an oversight when Samotse was deported without assurance that he would not be executed if found guilty of the murder.