Witness leads evidence in theft of motor vehicles

PATRICIA MAGANU
Staff Writer | Friday January 22, 2010 00:00

Mompati Katholo, 18, told the court that what started off as an evening out with his friend ended in a night where his friend just engaged in a crime spree.

Katholo told the court that the accused person Peter Phatsimo Oraletse picked him up from a bar in Shashe Mooke where they both reside, on April 11 last year.

'He told me that he had borrowed a car and so we should go entertain ourselves in Francistown,' he said. He said that the accused came driving a Nissan March car and they proceeded to go but came across a problem when they arrived in Francistown.

'The car hit the Gerald circle and he abandoned it there and told me that we should walk to Somerset Extension where his brother stays. We got there around midnight,' he added. He says that the Nissan March had also run out of petrol.  Katholo says that when they got to the bother's house, the accused started looking for the house keys but he could not find them.

'He only found a toolbox and he took a metal rod from the toolbox and forced opened the front door and the inside door and took the car keys,' he told the court.

The witness then told the court that they left in the truck that the accused person had stolen and went back to Shashe Mooke.

'When we got to Shashe Mooke I asked him to go and tell the owner of the Nissan March that he had wrecked it.

'When the owner of the car got upset about her vehicle, Phatsimo ran away and we drove back to Francistown and went back to his brother's house.

We were now joined by a friend of his and when we got there they went into the house and took an AIWA stereo and two speakers,' he told the court.

Katholo further told the court that they immediately set out in the truck and after a few attempts at selling the stereo, it was bought for P350.'They left a soccer field to go and buy alcohol and later picked me up and took me back to Shashe Mooke,' he added.

He says that later that day he was picked up by the police and put in a cell but was later released after the accused person told the police that he had nothing to do with it.

The witness was not shaken by the accused person, Oraletse during cross examination where he tried to show the court that the witness was not credible but stood by his story and answered all questions unhesitatingly.

Oraletse insisted that Katholo was lying because his testimony in court contradicted what he wrote in his statement to the police.
The case continues.