Mentally �unsound� man charged with murder

Lebogang Mosikare | Tuesday August 22, 2017 16:52

 

State prosecutor Mothusi Meshack applied for 33-year-old Kenosi Mmolawa of Gerald Estates to be remanded in custody for 14 days to enable the police to continue with their investigations in the matter.

The state alleges that Mmolawa killed Zimbabwean, Simbarashe Ntamba between August 10 and 17 at or near City Way Filling Station.

Mmolawa chose to use English during the court’s proceedings, but his utterances were indecipherable to the prosecution, Magistrate Kaveri Kapeko and people in the public gallery.

That prompted Kapeko to order that Mmolawa be taken for psychiatric evaluation in order to unpack his state of mind.

Kapeko also ruled that Mmolawa should be remanded in custody until September 14 when it is expected that psychiatric experts would have evaluated him.

Narrating the harrowing ordeal of how Ntamba met his untimely death, a police source very close to the matter said on that fateful day, Mmolawa and another man had asked for a ride from a man who was travelling from Gerald Estates to the city centre.

On the way to the city centre, the police source said, the driver of the car stopped at City Way Filling Station to enquire about something from the service station workers.

“Upon returning to his car, he discovered that his mobile phone that he had left charging in the car was missing. He asked Mmolawa, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, and the other man was sitting at the back passenger seat where his cellphone was. The other man surreptitiously signalled that Mmolawa had taken it,” the police source said.

Mmolawa, the source continued, denied having taken the phone.

“The man whose phone was stolen borrowed a mobile phone from one of the workers of the service station and rang his stolen phone’s number. The phone rang in one of Mmolawa’s pockets.

The mobile phone owner asked Mmolawa to give him his phone back, but Mmolawa refused. The driver then called the police because Mmolawa was refusing with his phone,” the source said.

The source added that when the car owner was still calling the police, Mmolawa hit him with a hard blow on the head and disembarked from the car in a bid to run away with the stolen phone.

“The car owner and people who were at the service station followed in hot pursuit. Seeing that the crowd chasing him was about to catch him, Mmolawa picked some stones in an attempt to scare them from catching him. While still throwing stones at his pursuers, Mmolawa unfortunately hit a passerby on the head, who was not amongst the people who were chasing him with a stone.”

“The man was admitted at Nyangabgwe Referral Hospital, but unfortunately succumbed to his head injuries on Thursday, hence Mmolawa’s current predicament,” the police source said.

Sources at the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said that there is a high possibility that Mmolawa’s case will not be treated like any other criminal case, as he was mentally unstable at the time he committed the offence.

The DPP source said that Mmolawa’s case would be handled in terms of Section 158 and 160 of Criminal Procurement Evidence (CPE) Act because it is relevant for his matter.

The Act says that when in the course of a trial or preparatory examination the judiciary officer has reason to believe that the accused is of an unsound mind and consequently incapable of making his defence, he shall inquire into the facts of such unsoundness.

The source added that Mmolawa would then be advised by his attorney to plead not guilty to the charge because he was of unsound mind when he committed the offence and will subsequently be sentenced at the pleasure of President Ian Khama just like what obtained in the Thebe Njavera murder case.

Njavera, who was a soldier based at Donga BDF Military Barracks in Francistown, murdered his two daughters, Palesa and Paseka Ramaditse, aged four and two respectively, at Somerset Extension location in Francistown on February 4, 2013.

He gruesomely killed his children after having a misunderstanding with their mother who was his girlfriend.