22/09/2022
KHAMA SPEAKS
Media Release
Dumelang Bagaetsho ka P**a,
1. I have been refraining from commenting on the revelations that were contained in the letters by His Lordship the Chief Justice, and the Honourable Judge, Justice Ketlogetswe.
2. I have had the time to appreciate public sentiments on the revelations and reflect on the enormity of the implications concerning me and for justice in our country.
3. I have cases pending before the courts of law. There has been a rush to the Court of Appeal on every case that I have won to have my victory overturned. We now know how this came about and the real motive behind it.
4. What does it mean Bagaetsho for my cases, past and yet to be decided in our courts, when it is indicated that the Chief Justice may have tried to bring influence on my cases so that they can go against me.
5. It has come out that the Chief Justice stated that only judges who come from one part of the country should hear my cases. Can there ever be justice for me when clearly I have been made a target of the judiciary as dictated by the Chief Justice? Could it be that now the Court of Appeal has been diverted from being our last port of hope for justice due to the influence of the Chief Justice and those that put him there to achieve their political objectives? This is unprecedented in any jurisdiction.
6. Why should the way I use or enjoy my benefits and entitlements, for instance, be a matter for the state? For example, there are no legal restrictions or conditions attached to my international travel, as it applies to where I go and who I see. Like any other former Presidents in Botswana, I should be able to go wherever I want and see whoever I want to see, just like I cannot be told how to spend my pension which is my earned benefit. If I choose to donate it to His Holiness the Dalai Lama or anyone else, I can because it is my right to do so.
7. The Chief Justice has put it in black and white that the infamous Butterfly case into which my name and that of the Bank of Botswana was brought had been taken to court on fabricated evidence! Can the Honourable Chief Justice look further into the accusations that I am in possession of unlicensed fi****ms and similarly protest this fabrication! Would he tell the nation now what the consequences are for those who authored the fabricated affidavit, and those who influenced, engineered, and presided over such criminality.
8. The nation will recall that I have always maintained my innocence of all the charges brought against me, everything from possession or theft of fi****ms to money laundering. The result of this witch-hunt has been to make me homeless in my own country where my official residence has been declared a crime scene. I ask again, is this justice? Is this Botswana!
9. I maintain that the charges against me are all fabricated in a desperate attempt to find an excuse to arrest, detain and eliminate me. It is part of a political grand plan to prevent me from helping the opposition to achieve regime change in 2024 to relieve Batswana of ongoing disregard for the rule of law and mismanagement of the country that has brought untold misery to the ordinary Motswana. The 2024 victory will also usher in legal consequences for those top to bottom who have been engaging in wholesale corruption with tenders, land acquisition, poaching, and fabrications and undermining the rule of law across all state agencies.
10. Be that as it may, I might return home to Botswana for Christmas. I take comfort in the fact that now Batswana and the world know that I am a target not because of any unlawful conduct or wrong doing.
11. The nation should know that there has always been this plan to humiliate me in public through the fashionable spectacle of handcuffs and leg chains, if not to eliminate me at any and all costs for political reasons. Attempts to poison me were real and were State sponsored. Otherwise how do we explain the lack of interest by government to investigate this, even after the United Nations intervened?
12. Finally let me thank Batswana for their continued support. I wish you well in your daily endeavours and hope that sooner rather than later the hardships you currently endure will come to an end.
P**a.
