Nigerian accused claims frame on cocaine charge

He accused the investigating officer, Khumo Bagopi of fabricating the case after he was discharged and acquitted by the village magistrate court on a different offence last year. 

'After the case, you and your colleagues vowed that you were going to send me back to prison at whatever cost. You said this when accompanying me to the immigration headquarters to extend my stay in Botswana. How can you be so bent on putting an innocent man in jail?' Chiama asked Bagopi.

Bagopi told the court that the police had been informed that Chiama was dealing in cocaine and they mounted an operation to apprehend him. The police worked with a drug user whom they gave P600 to purchase the stuff from Chiama and before that they had made copies of the P100 notes. 

He said the accused was arrested at Block 9 council flats in Gaborone in November last year with assistance of his colleagues and members of the public. The police found him with the money and the cocaine.

They charged him with unlawfully dealing in cocaine and that of unlawful possession of the drug. 

Chiama argued that his accomplice had not been charged though he confessed in court that he was a drug user. Apparently after scrutinising the charge sheet and the affidavit from the police forensic laboratory the accused put it to Bogopi that he did not know the full contents of the two documents, which he confirmed. 'So how can you say you are an investigating officer when you didn't even look at the charge sheet?' inquired Chiama.  The witness got into trouble when he and the prosecutor announced that they had withdrawn the charge of unlawful possession of cocaine.

'I put it to you once again that you fabricated this case so that you can put an innocent man in jail. You had already charged me before you arrested me,' Chiama argued.

He told the magistrate that the police failed to bring key eyewitnesses to testify in court because they knew they had fabricated the case and that they planted the money in his belongings. 

He expressed his dismay at the contradictory statements the police made in their testimony. 

The cocaine, money and copies were produced in court as exhibits and Chiama did not object. The case is scheduled to continue on February 11th, whilst Chiama was sent back to jail.