DIS suspends Butterfly
Mpho Mokwape | Friday December 13, 2019 15:24
Maswabi, a senior intelligence officer with the spy agency who is facing charges amongst them financing terrorism, received her suspension letter a few days after being granted bail by Gaborone High Court.
According to the letter, Maswabi is suspended pending the investigation and completion of her case.
Maswabi’s suspension comes despite having denied the allegations levelled against her in court, arguing that they were fabrications and lies. Recently, in her application for bail Maswabi said the evidence that the State claims to have was nothing but fabrication.
In her founding affidavit for bail application, she said her attorneys in their quest for the truth uncovered that the evidence used against her in court was manufactured.
Maswabi also explained that her attorney, in particular Uyapo Ndadi, investigated the genuineness of the allegations made by the State in the affidavit deposed by Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) investigator, Jako Hubona that was filed in opposing her bail application and it turned out it was deliberately fabricated by the State.
According to her affidavit, the accounts she is accused of being a signatory to, Blue Flies held at ABSA and Fire Flies held at Nedbank were all lies and that the documents the State presented before court as agreement evidence were lies too.
She submitted that her attorney, while in South Africa received letters from both banks denying that such accounts existed with them, or that there was any agreement made pertaining to her. Meanwhile, former president Ian Khama and South African businesswoman who were also fingered in the Maswabi case are backing her and are all looking to sue the State for the allegations levelled against them.
Khama explained that allegations in Maswabi case were false, fictitious and clearly nonsensical and that is why he was prepared to challenge the allegations under oath.
At a press briefing on Monday, Khama said all those mentioned in the DCEC investigation will work together to explore to the fullest the crimes committed by Hubona.
They will further institute defamation proceedings in order to obtain redress against all those involved in the fraudulent scheme, he stated. “When the truth comes out as it has already started doing, the nation is going to suffer great reputational harm here and abroad. I do not wish on Botswana the damage we are going to suffer as a result of this exposure, but neither do I wish such criminality which was committed by this government to ever be done again to any citizen or anyone else,” he said.
Bridget Motsepe-Radebe, who was also fingered by the DCEC on Maswabi case, has indicated that she will sue after the banks in South Africa cleared her name. “All those guilty of false and defamatory information on the affidavit will also be sued. I confirm the intention for my lawyers to work with the lawyers of others affected by the scandalous allegations to seek validation. We have done nothing wrong and should not be subjected to this abusive conduct.” she said.