Guilty

By Bame Piet
Staff Writer | Monday April 28, 2008 00:00

 

Other organisations that the two attempted to defraud are Botswana Life Insurance Limited (BLIL) and Motor Vehicle Accident Fund (MVAF). They spent the weekend in jail and will be back in court on May 12 when sentence will be passed.

Deputy Registrar and Master of the High Court Nelson Bopa, who presided over the case when he was still a magistrate, said the state had proven beyond reasonable doubt that the two lawyers were guilty as charged. He was concluding the case that had dragged on in the court for four years.

The court heard that between October 2003 and January 2004 the duo defrauded the Botswana government of around P1million using fraudulent cheques, fictitious companies and individuals. Bopa said that the 20 witnesses the state had called revealed that there was a meeting held in Francistown after someone had approached Mothusi suggesting he deposit the cheques into the Trust Account of his law firm, Mothusi and Company. He was not immediately ready to accept the offer because he suspected that the police were monitoring his account. He communicated the 'game' to Sikhakhane who agreed that the cheques should be deposited into the Trust account of his firm, the court was told. 

The main player in these transactions was a fictitious Zolile Makhumfane and his fictitious company Multi Construction Engineering (Pty) Ltd and AES Hyperworld (Pty) Ltd. Bopa said that the state witnesses, among them employees of the two law firms, confirmed the Francistown meeting and that they were sent on errands between the two companies and the banks. He said after police intense investigations in Botswana and South Africa, it was found that Multi Construction Engineering (Pty), its director Zolile Makumfane, AES Hyperworld were non-existent. 

'The company and Makumfane were a figment of the imaginations of the two attorneys. These entities only exist in the fertile imagination of the accused persons,' he told the fully packed courtroom. As he pronounced the judgement Mothusi had his hands folded as Sikhakhane started showing emotions on his face. The magistrate said Sikhakhane was arrested by agents of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) while attempting to withdraw the money from a bank in Gaborone. His colleague, Mothusi, was arrested later and Bopa said that the latter gave contradicting statements. 

It emerged also during the trial that a certain company called Dogma Investments was involved but the director was called to testify and he denied having any business deals with the two attorneys and their law firms. Bopa said there were transactions made between Mothusi and Sikhakhane, and several individuals but there were contradictory explanations from the attorneys. He said that upon receiving P1 010, 554.73 that was proceeds of serious crime, Mothusi allocated the money to his clients whose cases had been concluded at the courts as a cover up. He quoted one state witness who said that he had opened a file with Mothusi law firm and had concluded his case but a mysterious person had paid for his legal services at around P80, 000. He denied knowledge of who the financier was.

One of the defence witnesses, a prison warder, made things hard for Mothusi when he told the court that he was promised a reward to lie to the court. He later changed his statement to say that the said Makumfane never visited a prisoner who was Mothusi's client.