Mmegi

Kebonang dismisses State's leave to appeal in Kgosi gun case

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kebonang

Gaborone High Court judge, Zein Kebonang has dismissed the State's application for leave to appeal his decision not to recuse himself from a case in which former spy boss, Isaac Kgosi wanted his seized guns back.

Despite the application being moot or having lost relevance, it was dismissed with costs. Justice Kebonang had at the time refused to recuse himself from the case after it was allocated to him after it was referred back to the High Court by the Court of Appeal in 2023. Kebonang proceeded to hear the case this year and subsequently issued a judgment in which he ordered the state to return Kgosi's guns to him. The judgment was issues while the leave to appeal application for recusal filed by the Attorney General was still pending. In an order issued last week, July 10, Kebonang said upon reading the papers filed and having noted no appearance from Attorney General (AG) who were the applicants and Kgosi's attorney, Diba Diba, he dismissed the application with costs. "The application for leave having become moot is refused with costs. Such costs to be on ordinary scale," he said.

At the time, the AG had cited, among others, that Justice Kebonang was criminally charged with Kgosi and former president, Ian Khama, and others, and therefore, argued he was conflicted. The State had requested for his recusal saying that Justice Kebonang's brother, former Member of Parliament for Lobatse, Sadique Kebonang was a personal friend of Kgosi and had deposed to affidavits in favour of the former director of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) in matters before other courts. The State also mentioned that Justice Kebonang was formerly the chairperson of the DIS Tribunal and also that he had been criminally charged together with Kgosi. However, the judge was not willing to budge as he considered the application unmerited and dismissed it. Justice Kebonang said it had nothing to do with him that his brother, Sadique was Kgosi's personal friend. “There is no allegation that Kgosi is a friend of mine. I am not responsible for my brother nor his keeper. His friends or enemies are not mine and the converse is equally true," said the judge at the time. Justice Kebonang also said although they are twins, they are not co-joined to be viewed and treated as persons with no separate identities, lives, aspirations and ambitions and that his friendships and his cannot objectively be a basis for a recusal by any reasonable person.
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