DIS responds to Mmegi article

Correspondent | Thursday October 26, 2017 15:16

This news story by Oarabile Mosikare is clearly an attempt to malign the Directorate of Intelligence and Security and its employees.  It is alleged in the news item that three DIS agents interviewed Judge Moroka and that the DIS has put him under continuous surveillance, monitoring his movements and telephone conversations.  Despite the fact that the DIS Director General pointed out to the author of this story that, no DIS team interrogated Judge Moroka, the newspaper proceeded to use a deceiving headline to mislead the readers. The contentions made in this story are factually incorrect and baseless. 

There is no DIS team that interviewed/interrogated Judge Moroka and no surveillance and monitoring by the DIS of Judge Moroka’s movements and telephone conversations.

The Directorate challenges Mmegi, its informants and Judge Moroka to state the names of the so-called DIS officers who came to interview him. It has never happened that even in the now well known cases of judges and their allowances, the DIS has never interviewed any of the affected judges and one wonders why Judge Moroka would be a special case. The motive is clearly to create a perception through this misinformation linking the DIS to the issue of the EVM, and to project the Directorate as a force behind the use of the EVM instrument or technology in the 2019 elections so that it can be enabled to tinker with the technology and manipulate the election results to favour the Botswana Democratic Party.

The Directorate wishes to state for the record that it has no interest in what Batswana choose to use for the 2019 polls and to this end rejects the misinformation and propaganda peddled by certain quarters painting the DIS as promoters of the EVM.

The Intelligence and Security Service Act 2007 provides that “….in the event the Directorate wishes to conduct an investigation of a personal or intrusive nature such as searches or interception of postal mail, electronic mail, computer or telephone communications, the Director General or an officer or support staff authorised by him or her shall show cause to a court of a Senior Magistrate or above or a Judge of the High Court and obtain an order…….”.  To conduct the monitoring without the court order as insinuated in the fake news article would be a breach of the Intelligence and Security Service Act.

Members of the public, including Judge Moroka, can lodge any complaints about our service with the Registrar of the High Court who is obliged, within seven days, to forward the same to the Chairman of the Tribunal on Intelligence and Security, with a copy to the Minister responsible.

Government of Botswana

Gaborone