My unpleasant encounter with security agents

| Friday March 18, 2011 00:00

Only a fool takes threats lightly, especially threats of death made by members of elite units of law-enforcement agencies. These guys seem to care less that the world may be listening or watching them when they make threats, which they do with reckless abandon.  Such was my experience which, until Monday this week, I had decided to push to the back of my mind because after it happened two weeks ago, I decided it was not worth sharing with self-respecting members of the public.

However, while at the High Court on Monday, I was reminded of the unpleasant encounter in quite an arrogant manner by none other than the very person  from two weeks previously. 'O ipotsa go re a ke nna. Ee ke nna. Re go emetse ko ofising.

(You are wondering if it is me. Yes, I am the one and we have been waiting for you at the office), the bloke said as a group of court officials, MI and DIS agents and journalists filed past to the paring lot.

The man came either to give moral support to his friends who were in the dock or he was on duty. The men in the dock are accused of murdering John Kalafatis. Shocked at the man's arrogance, I responded: 'I don't need to see you. I will talk to your superior officer.'

As a few of my journalist colleagues and the man's colleagues stopped upon the realisation that this was an argument, one of the man's colleagues kindly inquired if I could share with him what this was all about. This is the story that I told him, and that I now share with you.

On that day two weeks back, I received a call from my mother that the police were looking for my nephew. The 'nephew' is really an informally adopted orphaned juvenile who, for some reason, found a home at my parent's house, having first moved in at age four. A home indeed it is because it has kept him away from stray trouble with the law, especially given the fact that his own biological siblings are habitual offenders, so much that one of them is in custody awaiting trial for murder and armed robbery.

The juvenile, whom I shall call Josh for purposes of this article, is a well-behaved child who for all the time he has stayed with my parents and siblings, has never been known to behave in a manner different from the acceptable and cultured behaviour of the family.

The boy has found money and other valuables while washing 'Uncle's' car or cleaning around the house but never pocketed a thing. While, like most of my other nephews in the family, he learnt to drive during trips to the farm or while repairing a vehicle, he never moves a vehicle from where it is parked without being asked to do so despite the fact that the keys are accessible to him.

So it was against this background that I asked my mother to ask the 'policemen' who had come for the boy to wait for me because I was sure there had been a mistake. 

According to my mother, the police had shown her an identity card that belonged to Josh and a cheque leaf that the person in the ID had tried to fraudulently cash at a bank at Game City. They promised to wait and I found them sitting outside under the tree. After greetings, I introduced myself as the uncle of the boy and went on to explain the relationship. They showed me the ID and the cheque leaf, his name written neatly on it. The amount of money to be cashed was P9,000.

' As I told you, I can't speak for the boy, but I would be awfully disappointed if it was him,' I said as I looked up my nephew's phone number so that I could call him. 'The boy spends a lot of time at home and I would be reluctant to believe he was not home for most or all of yesterday. But then again, you can never vouch 100 percent for anyone, not even your own child. 

'Secondly, I recall that this young man's wallet, which carried his ID and some money, was stolen some time last year. We encouraged him to report the matter to the police, and I know he did. However, let's wait to hear what he has to say.'Even as I was calling him, the boy was at the entrance to the compound, returning from a vehicle spares shop where he had gone to buy spare parts for a vehicle he was repairing with a friend, upon hearing that some policemen were waiting for him at home.

As soon as he arrived, the policemen, one of whom had introduced himself as Detective Mokibe, asked him if he was 'Josh' and if he could produce his ID. The boy answered in the affirmative and went on to produce a duplicate copy of his ID.

Presumably this was the copy given by National Registration following the theft of Josh's ID. The boy had a solid alibi provided by my mother and those who were working with Josh at the time the attempt to defraud the bank happened.

Furthermore, the signature at the back of the cheque where the customer signs did not match Josh's .  'I have described to you the type of siblings this young man has,' I said the policemen. 'It is possible that the person who tried to commit this offence is one of them or someone we can help identify...,' I said as Mokibe interrupted.

' Yes, I think it would be a good idea for you to come along and look at the footage,' suggested Detective Mokibe's partner, whose name has eluded me from the beginning.

' Join the police in their car, I will follow you,' I said to my nephew. The idea was to give the policemen the opportunity to talk to the boy without my presence en route to the Game City bank. At the bank, we were introduced to a woman presumably in management. We were introduced by Detective Mokibe as 'Josh's family' and we had come to help see the pictures and say if the person was really Josh. Realising that he was not planning to divulge the identity of Josh (my nephew) in our company, we decided to play along. The viewing of the pictures would take some three hours - from 3pm to 6:18 pm.

Very clearly, the man in the CCTV footage was not Josh. He had a new brush cut while our Josh had a fully-grown teenage-boy's crop of hair. The man in the picture had solid, well-developed biceps against Josh's mere boy's arms. The man was shorter but broader than Josh. He had a beard. Josh does not have a beard. While he made a very good job of hiding his face in the shadow of a 'stapora cap,' he was very clearly a different person from our Josh. And no Sir, he was not one of the notorious siblings. Nor was he anyone we knew.

The clerk who assisted the hoodlum that tried to swindle the bank or the company in whose name the cheque appeared was called. We were asked to sit on the sofas in the banking hall as the 'policemen' and the bank staff considered their next move. Then the clerk came out of the office and appeared to be whispering to a colleague who occupied a cubicle adjacent to the manager's office. Three of us - a customer, Josh and myself - sat on the sofa and I knew from the girl's furtive look at us that this was some kind of identification parade.

Very indiscreet, I thought as I began to wonder if the men were really policemen. Come to think of it, Detective Mokibe's eight-year old child whom he said went to Newton School was not in the military bus that dropped off children. Thankfully, the child was found at the school, playing innocently with others whose parents might have been late to fetch them. And the school had kindly waited for the parents to come, eventually calling the parents when it appeared they might never come.

We were called back in and asked by Detective Mokibe and his comrade what our impressions were. We had said during the viewing that we could not identify the boy and had avoided discussing the fact that the ID he carried belonged to Josh. So we said it again that we did not know the thug.

Detective Mokibe asked the lady manager and the clerk what they thought, and while they hesitated, he chipped in: 'Mma nte ke phunye sekaku hela. (Let me just break the secret). Josh is this young man and the ID belongs to him. So he is our suspect,' he said.

Suddenly the demeanour of the bank manager changed altogether. Looking at the boy with a snarl, she declared: 'It's you, you came here to steal and you hid behind that stapora cap!' Whereupon I registered my displeasure and disapproval.

'I will not allow any one of you to traumatise this young man. He is already traumatised by being investigated when quite clearly he has no idea what happened.

The report of his stolen ID should be available at Mogoditshane Police Station, and if you still need to investigate him, you will do it in a professional manner, not with her ( bank manager) barking at him,' I said as the manager looked at me, feet first, wringing her nose before asking: 'Who's this man, and why did you bring him here?'

In response, Detective Mokibe and his colleague said I should wait outside the bank. No Sir, I will not. My nephew is a juvenile, I insisted, and if they were going to take him through such a sham investigation, I must be present. 'Josh, your uncle is arguing too much,' detective Mokibe said to the boy. 'Since you are the prime suspect, we will take you to Old Naledi Police cells.' And so they exited the bank.

As they boarded their vehicle, a new Hyundai Accent (whose registration number I have), I approached them with a view to finding out if they were indeed taking the young man to Old Naledi Police Station. I figured I would present the true story to the Station Commander who would obviously see that there was no need to incarcerate the boy.

However, Detective Mokibe, who was in the driver's seat, would not open the window to talk to me. Instead, he sped off.During the interval to reach my car, I lost them. So I went straight to Old Naledi Police Station, but Josh was nowhere to be found. A search of who owned the vehicle was fruitless because the computer at police headquarters was down, none of the officers knew such a vehicle, and  the Station Commander was not around.

I then went to Gaborone West Police Station to check if the 'policemen' had taken Josh there. He was not there. The police there, who were very kind and helpful, also tried to contact police headquarters for the identity of the vehicle, but to no avail. 'I would suggest you register a case of abduction,' said a senior officer I had earlier met at the gate and to whom I had briefly narrated the story.

'We can't be sure if the people you said took your nephew are police.'

Just then, my mother called to say the 'policemen' had just dropped off the boy at home. This was just after 8 pm. My nephew later told me that as soon as they disappeared from my view, the 'policemen' had said to each other: 'A re bowe. Mo tlogele a tlaletlale le di-police station tse a mmatle! (Let's make a u-turn. Let him go to all the police stations looking for him!')

Not only that. As they dropped my nephew off, they tried to scare the wits out of my old parents too!

'Your son argues too much,' Detective Mokibe's colleague said to them. 'Tell him to stop it. Also, tell him to never tell people where he is working as he makes himself an easy target. You know that people have been dying lately.'

I took it as a blatant threat. The following day, I paid the Naledi Police Station Commander a visit and lodged a complaint. It turned out the men were not members of his staff. However, as it also turned out, I was not the first person to come complaining about the conduct of  'Detective Mokibe'. 

The Station Commander referred me to the Serious Crime Unit at CID South. The men did not belong there either. I eventually established that they were soldiers. After a short telephone call to their superior at SSKB in Mogoditshane, I was asked to meet with their superior officer.

Owing to busy schedules, I have not been able to do so yet. And I would not have written this narration were it not for the fact that as soon as his seniors in Brigadier Magosi had left the High Court premises on Monday, 'Detective' Mokibe angrily pointed and wagged a finger at me. When I put the menacing finger and the threats to me through my parents, together I get more than perturbed.