Murder or suicide?: Court orders exhumation of body
Innocent Selatlhwa | Wednesday August 7, 2024 09:49
Last Thursday, High Court's Justice Godfrey Radijeng ordered that the deceased be exhumed for postmortem and for the police to conduct a comprehensive investigation into the circumstances that led to Mosarwa’s death. The court also ordered the police to hand over the docket to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
Tiroyaone’s mother, Oganne Mosarwa and two of his children from a previous marriage, Pako and Ofentse Mosarwa, suspected foul play in his death which was concluded to be a suicide by hanging. They would engage the services of Dr Edwin Makwati of Modimo and Associates and whisk the Commissioner of Police, Attorney General and Tiroyaone’s estranged wife, Orapeleng Mosarwa before court demanding a postmortem.
In her founding affidavit, Oganne stated that the matter was an extremely urgent application wherein they sought the court to intervene and direct that the body of the deceased, Tiroyaone Mosarwa be exhumed in light of some evidence that surfaced shortly after the burial of the deceased indicating that the cause of death might have been by other factors other than suicide as alleged by the Commissioner of Police.
“This application invokes in large part, the provisions of the Inquests Act CAP 07:01, for a number of reasons. The first reason is that the death of the deceased in this case is not a natural one, and in our opinion not by suicide, but wrapped in some highly incomprehensible circumstances. Secondly, the police officers from the Gaborone West Police Station have been less than helpful, failed to carry out a full investigation in establishing the cause of death,” Oganne stated.
According to Oganne, her son’s death certificate states that he died of suicide by hanging due to chronic depression with no postmortem conducted.
Furthermore, she said none of the applicants who have lived in the same house as the deceased continually since 2022 and prior, was interviewed by the police officers or any medical staff regarding the deceased’s alleged chronic depression, so it defies logic how the conclusion was reached that he had chronic depression and what the cause of such a condition was.
She states that in 2019, the deceased married Orapeleng, who had also been married twice previously and whose previous marriages didn't subsist.
“The third respondent (Orapeleng) already had four adult children when she married my deceased son and the couple never had any children together. The deceased has never adopted Orapeleng’s children who were already adults when they got married in 2019,' said the mother.
Oganne said the relationship between the couple had always been marred by constant conflict and always requiring third-party intervention even before they got married. “Around or about 2022, Orapeleng approached the District Commissioner stating that she was no longer interested in the marriage and proceeded to expel the deceased from the home they shared in Gabane. Fortunately, the deceased went to live at Block 6, Gaborone with his three children from his previous marriage, while Orapeleng remained in the couple’s matrimonial home at Gabane.
This is to say that since 2022, the deceased and the third respondent have lived separately although not divorced, with the deceased on several occasions engaging us as his family to tell us that Orapeleng was tormenting him,” she said.
She said she was aware that in his last days, the couple were engaged in a bitter battle regarding the three-bedroomed house at Block 6 which the deceased lived in with his children from his first wife, which house Orapeleng wanted to appropriate.
“In late June 2024, less than a month before the death of the deceased, the third respondent launched an application in the Mogoditshane Magistrate's Court seeking to evict the second applicant, the third applicant and their younger sister Amantle Mosarwa from the Block 6 house, which they had always occupied since the death of their mother in 2004 and it being the only home they have.
Her grounds were that the deceased’s children were abusing her, a strange allegation given that she lives in Gabane and not at the said house. Fortunately, the deceased had already transferred the house to his children and the third respondent’s attempt at evicting them was dismissed on June 25, 2024, when it emerged during the proceedings that the allegations of abuse were unfounded and that the house was registered in the names of the deceased’s children, thus infuriating the third respondent and fuelling her contempt towards the deceased, his children and his side of the family,' she said.
Oganne said the second and third applicants informed her that upon having her application for eviction dismissed, Orapeleng vowed that no one was ever going to take the Block 6 House from her. She said Orpeleng blamed the deceased for transferring the house to his children and scamming her and stated that she would get the house back whatever it took. She said that 10 days after Orapeleng realised that the deceased had transferred the house to the children, the deceased disappeared and was found dead which caused a concern for them in light of all the other factors that she has highlighted herein cumulatively considered.
“The second applicant called me on or about 6 July 2024 to inform me that the deceased had left home at Block 6 and had not returned. The second applicant stated that the deceased had told him that the Orapeleng had been pestering him for a meeting which he had been declining and upon calling the deceased, he could not get hold of him. As the family, we agreed that a missing person report ought to be reported. On or about July 9, 2024, the second applicant was on his way to report the deceased as a missing person at the Gaborone West Police Station when he received a call from his siblings asking him to go back to the house at Block 6,” she said.
Oganne stated that upon arrival at Block 6, the second applicant found some police officers and one of them introduced herself as Detective Modimoeng who informed them that the police had received a report from a certain individual who had found the deceased hanging from a tree behind Newton School. Modimoeng stated that on arriving at the scene, the police officers cut the ligature that the deceased had supposedly used to hang himself.
She said the second applicant informed her and some other members of the family that he had gone to the mortuary to identify the deceased, however, he noticed that the deceased had sustained some highly conspicuous injury on the forehead, presumably, facial trauma with part of the forehead caved in as if by some blunt force. There was also a scar that had been stitched up with some white thread, running across the deceased’s forehead and the deceased had open cuts on his lips with some seemingly broken teeth. When the second applicant requested that the body of the deceased be uncovered in order for him to see if there were any other visible injuries to the body, the third respondent refused to allow him, stating that it was enough that he had seen the deceased’s face.
On the day of the viewing of the body as the deceased lay in the casket just before the burial procession, Oganne said she and all other family members confirmed the injury and the stitches on the deceased’s face, however, nothing much could be done at that stage as Orapeleng insisted that the burial must proceed and she was not willing to entertain any queries by regarding the developments.
She also stated that it was important to note that a few days after the passing of the deceased, another police officer by the name of Constable Motshegwe, upon being asked by Tebogo Mosalakatane what position the investigating officers had found the deceased in, stated that they had found the deceased, not hanging from a suspended rope, but in a seated position with a rope around his neck.
“Constable Motshegwe’s version contradicted that of Detective Modimoeng. This raised more questions than answers in that, it is not fathomable that two police officers who were at the same scene at the same time could give such starkly conflicting versions regarding something as simple as the position a deceased person was found in,” she said.