The State says former president Ian Khama’s application to challenge his warrant of arrest is incompetent and fatally defective. Khama has dragged the government to court as a matter of urgency to challenge his warrant of arrest. The State now believes that Khama has failed to show why his application was urgent.
In papers filed on Friday, the State through the Attorney General (AG) says it intends to oppose Khama’s application because they (State) believes that he (Khama) in his papers failed to justify why his matter was urgent and has failed to meet requirements.
“The application is incompetent for the reason that the matter is not urgent in the sense contemplated by order 12, Rules of this court and whatever urgency is there is self created,” reads the State notice of intention to raise points of law.
“To the extent that the applicant (Khama) is seeking an interim interdict ,the application is fatally defective for the reason that the applicant has not met the requirements for an interim interdict. The application is fatally defective for the reason that no factual basis has been laid for the review and setting aside of the warrant,” the State further states.
The State further points out that Khama should have made the application to set aside his warrant before the court that is handling his review application,
“The application for stay of execution of both the proceedings in criminal case number CMRRS-000007-21 and the warrant of the arrest being interlocutory in nature ought to have been brought before the judge dealing with the merits of the review application under case number MAHGB-000673-22," buttressed the State.
Khama was slapped with a warrant of arrest by the Regional Magistrate court two weeks ago. According to a warrant of arrest issued by Acting Regional Magistrate Mareledi Dipate, Khama is to be apprehended on sight and brought before the Broadhurst Magistrate Court.
Khama who is the second accused in the matter has never appeared before court since he was charged in April, 2022. Recently, when Khama’s warrant was issued his co-accused and former spy chief Isaac Kgosi, suspended police commissioner Keabetswe Makgophe and Victor Paledi , a former deputy permanent secretary were all absent.
The trio however, has not missed any court appearance since they were charged alongside Khama.
According to the State, there are reasonable grounds of suspicion against Khama that he did on or about March 3, 2016 commit the crime of unlawful possession of firearms contrary to section 9(1) of the Arms and Ammunition's Act and other offences as detailed in the charge sheet.
Other charges include procuring the registration of a firearm by false pretense, aiding and abetting unlawful possession of a firearm and ownership of a firearm not registered in accordance with the Arms and Ammunition Act of 2018. Khama is to be arrested and answer to the said charges and be further dealt with according to the law.
