Prominent F'town law firm burgled
Lebogang Mosikare | Friday June 29, 2018 15:20
The thieves stole valuable goods that included a television set, decoder and a Central Processing Unit (CPU), which contains confidential information of the law firm and its clients.
Jani said the highly skilled thieves gained entrance through opening one of the firm’s windows. Jani said he had no idea who could have broken into the firm’s offices or their motive.
He said that at this stage, he cannot speculate if there was any foul play behind the break-in, but will rely on the police to help the firm with arresting the culprits who broke in to steal valuable goods and information from his office.
“What surprises us is the fact that the thieves left other expensive items like computers in some of our offices, but chose to steal a decoder, television and CPU,” a visibly worried Jani said at the Francistown High Court.
He added that the law firm was secure on Tuesday afternoon when they knocked off.
The station commander of Central police, Lebalang Maniki confirmed the incident.
“The break-in and theft was reported to us on Wednesday morning and we sent our officers to the law firm to investigate.
“Our investigations have just commenced and we have not arrested anyone in connection to the offence,” Maniki said.
The break-in and theft happened after Jani successfully applied for Dumisani Moyo last week - an alleged Zimbabwean poaching kingpin - to be granted bail. The alleged poacher Moyo, 52, was repatriated from Zimbabwe to Botswana towards the end of last year to face a single count of being allegedly found with a rhinoceros horn without lawful cause in October 2012 along the Francistown-Orapa junction road. Moyo was previously granted bail by the Magistrate’s Court in Francistown in 2012 after the same law firm applied for his bail, but he escaped without a trace until he was arrested in Zimbabwe last year before being extradited to Botswana to face music.
According to a study entitled ‘Beyond Borders: Crime, conservation and criminal networks in illicit rhino horn trade’ carried out by the Global Initiative against Transactional Organised Crime, the unemployed Moyo is a holder of both Zimbabwe and Zambia passports.
The study adds that Interpol has issued an international red notice calling for member States to arrest Moyo.
The break-in at Tshekiso Ditiro & Jani Legal Practice follows a similar incident in which the offices of prominent Francistown human rights attorney and Botswana Congress Party activist, Morgan Moseki were broken into in February 2017.
The thieves made away with a laptop, CPU, a computer monitor and two memory sticks.
The break-in happened when Moseki was handling cases of hundreds of asylum seekers who were arguing that their continued stay at the Francistown Centre for Illegal Immigrants (FCCII) was illegal since the Sate was treating them like convicts.
At the time, Moseki had won many cases that were handled by various Judges at the Francistown High Court, but the government through the Attorney General finally triumphed over the asylum seekers at the Court of Appeal. Said Moseki then: “Amongst the cases I am handling is that of seven refugees whose statuses were revoked by government.
“I am not saying anybody from the government security forces was involved in the break-in, but at the moment I do not rule out foul play”.