The Monitor was present to cover the proceedings that followed the events of February 2022. Around mid-afternoon, a brazen daylight cash-in-transit robbery in Gaborone's busy Main Mall brought the area to a standstill. A police chase ensued, leading to a deadly shoot-out in sleepy Gaborone West Phase 2. By evening, 10 individuals, whom the police identified as robbers, had been killed, leaving one survivor. Thirty-one-year-old Tsaone Reboeleng, the sole survivor, appeared before Magistrate Kamogelo Mmesi this week. Dressed in an all-black designer suit, four-inch stilettos, and red lipstick, Reboeleng cut a solitary figure in the dock. She is charged with a single count of robbery alongside 10 others who died in the shootout.
Keeping a rather straight face, Reboeleng’s charge sheet was read out to which she pleaded not guilty. Before trial, her lawyer, Kgosietsile Ngakaagae, notified the court that they would be challenging the validity of a confession statement allegedly issued by Reboeleng. “There is going to be a trial within a trial. We want to bring to the attention of the court how this confession was obtained,” he said. Pressed by Prosecutor Pascal Mhandu to provide the court with further details of what he meant, Ngakaagae gave chilling details of what happened on the fateful day. Whilst the details will be narrated by the survivor in court next week, the attorney shared that his client was the only person to come out alive from the massacre. “My client was taken out of the residence after surrendering herself to the police. She had been shot by state agents. A bullet had gone through her,” he said.
Ngakaagae further told the court that instead of being taken to hospital, the accused was subjected to police torture. “This is a shooting that happened in the afternoon. She was kept in police custody, interrogated whilst still in that condition, beaten, and tortured and whilst in that condition she was told to give information and confess to what they think she did. She refused. She was later taken to Princess Marina Referral Hospital overnight and was treated for the gunshot wound,” he explained. All the while she was denied access to her family and legal representation until a court order was issued compelling the State to allow her access. “At the time, they had obtained a remand warrant for her at the women’s prison.
Before she was taken to prison, further investigation was carried out by the Central police, where she was again tortured and beaten. With guns pointed at her she was told to confess,” Ngakaagae told the court. According to the attorney, notwithstanding her attempts to refuse to confess, she eventually caved in. “She was being tortured and, in her desperation, she made the statement, a statement that implicated her to an extent which will become clear. Not only was she tortured, but she was in no psychological condition or position to give the kind of information she was being asked to give. Ten people had died in her house,” he said.
In a nail-biting statement, Ngakaagae said one of the 10 killed in the shootout, died execution-style. “One of them being a certain Phenyo, who was her housemate, came out of the house. Together they surrendered themselves. After being searched and interrogated by the state agents, Phenyo was told to step aside and was shot in cold blood by the agents,” Ngakaagae said. According to her lawyer, this is the extent to which she was broken. “She was forced into confessing, an untrue confession. She did so to save herself,” he added. In the end, the magistrate allowed for the trial within a trial to be heard first as the accused challenged the confession. She is expected to take the stand next week as the case continues. The alleged confession was published by Mmegi in December 2022. Visit our website for the story.
