TRUTH AND JUSTICE
State to call 27 witnesses in Montshiwa murder trial
The wheels of justice are finally turning in the protracted highprofile murder case in which former Fairgrounds Chief Executive Officer Michael Montshiwa was gunned down at his house in Block 6, Gaborone in 2016.
There is a glimmer of hope that the truth will finally be revealed.
Montshiwa could be fighting from his grave because although the accused have evaded the full wrath of the law for so long, indications, considering the momentum as the trial got underway at the Gaborone High Court last week Friday, are that the prosecution team is on their tail.
The prosecution has lined up about 27 witnesses in the case, including a traditional doctor, Bampoloki Seiso, who reportedly sold the gun used to murder Montshiwa, to the deceased’s friend and lawyer, David Modise.
In 2016, the same year that the incident occurred, the charges against Seiso were withdrawn, but later after gathering incriminating evidence, the charges were reinstated.
In his defence, Seiso argued that he cannot be directly implicated in the murder as the gun is not identical to the one he sold Modise, and also claims that he was not privy to any intention to kill Montshiwa.
One of the other key witnesses in the case, BDF Captain Stanley Tsolope, told the court that men in uniform had found Montshiwa dead upon arrival on the scene.
“A neighbour who had been startled by the sound of gunshots had rushed to the deceased’s home and found him dead outside his home, with an open gun wound on his neck,” he said.
It is often said that ‘the love of money is the root of all evil,’ and that could be the insistence in this regard because what reportedly started off as a tiff over a missing P250, 000 from his trust account, which Montshiwa had apparently set aside to purchase a plot, literally ended in tears following a confrontation between the two men.
Evidence presented by call centre operations companies as per court order revealed that on the night of the murder, Montshiwa had called Modise and summoned him to his house “to talk” because he had established that the money was missing from the account that Montshiwa had given Modise authority to oversee.
The investigating team further established that on the night of his death, the lawyer was the last person Montshiwa communicated with.
Furthermore, neighbours who heard the commotion reportedly stated that before the ‘bang bang’ sounds of guns pierced the quiet suburban neighbourhood, they had heard angry loud voices coming from the yard with echoes of the words: “I want my money back!”
Modise was later arrested with his friend Tumelo Tshukudu, who was apparently in his company on the day that the gun was purchased and also on the day of the fatal shooting.
The trial is being heard by Justice Zein Kebonang.