�Harassed� businessmen raise DIS, Police lawsuit to P23m

Innocent Selatlhwa | Thursday July 13, 2017 16:08

 

The duo, Thulaganyo Boiditswe and Tshepo Makgalemele, who are directors of Sparkling Auto Care Botswana franchise at the Airport Junction mall in Gaborone, accuse the police of making them lose a business opportunity to open a car wash business.

They have amended their writ of summons and are now demanding P23 million. Through their lawyer, Lyndon Mothusi, they want Isaac Kgosi and other officers to be arrested and charged with contempt of court for allegedly engaging in intimidation tactics to force them to abandon a civil matter that is before the High Court. 

The case developed from a loan application through Citizen Entrepreneurial Development Agency (CEDA), from which funding they intended to open a car wash business five years ago.  The DIS put the loan under a microscope on suspicion that it was fraudulent.

In the papers filed on May 22, 2017 the duo state that they have never received any information on the alleged fraud charge and they are still awaiting the P1.6 million to be disbursed. The applicants decried that they have on several occasions been detained and subsequently interrogated on a matter that is before the courts.

In their court papers, the applicants state that they were allegedly detained on April 19, 2017 at the Kgale Mews CID offices and hence they deemed their “continued harassment by the DIS and police” as unprocedural, unconstitutional and a way to force them to drop a case which is before the courts. 

The duo stated in their affidavits that it is unfounded for the DIS and police to still be investigating the matter five years after their initial arrest. In the latest twist of events, Mothusi wants his clients to be paid P23 million in total for all the claims. 

Before increasing the sum, Mothusi had claimed that each of the three plaintiffs be awarded P1 million ad seriatim for defamation since the allegations made were untrue.

  He had also wanted Boiditswe and Makgalemele to be awarded P500,000 each for malicious arrest, interrogation and interview in April 2017. Mothusi also wanted the duo to each be awarded P500,000 as damages for emotional and psychological trauma for malicious arrest and detention.