’Marafaele Mohloboli

A 53-year-old Chinese medical doctor was this week stabbed to death by unknown assailants at his surgery in Mafeteng.

Police spokesperson Superintendent Mpiti Mopeli identified the slain doctor as Tianshen Chen.

Supt Mopeli said the incident occurred shortly after Dr Chen had closed shop for the day. He said he was still in office preparing to go home when two men and a woman knocked and pleaded for assistance. They claimed they had a critical patient who urgently needed medical attention.

“According to information we got as well as CCVTV camera footage, the two men were wielding pistols as they walked in to the surgery. One of them stabbed Dr Chen with what appears to have been a very sharp object. Thereafter, they ransacked the whole place looking for money,” Supt Mopeli told the Sunday Express.

“They took all the money they found. They also took Dr Chen’s cell phone before walking out of the premises as if nothing had happened. They then flagged a taxi and went away in it like ordinary passengers,” added Supt Mopeli.

He said police investigations were ongoing.

The late Dr Chen was a well-known medical practitioner with a colourful history. He was widely suspected of involvement in various illegal activities including conducting abortions which are outlawed in Lesotho. Despite the widespread allegations against him, no charges were ever pressed.

In 2015, Dr Chen and three other doctors were accused of dispensing expired antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and antibiotics and operating under filthy conditions and without licences.

The others were Doctors Piet McPherson, Ntšinyi Makoa and Mokiba Rathebe.

The physicians were allegedly busted during a raid carried out by the police and Ministry of Health officials on 11 and 12 November 2015.

According to the health ministry’s environment health division at the time, Dr Chen’s surgery, operating as China Medical Service, was found “dirty from the ceiling, walls and floors”.

“The surgery had no operating licence; it had expired medication and drugs which were condemned and seized. It had no registration with the Lesotho Medical Dental and Pharmacy Council.”

The police had said at the time they were investigating the four doctors with a view to pressing charges against them.

Nothing ever came out of the investigation and the quartet were never charged.

Then health minister, Molotsi Monyamane, said they later discovered that Dr Chen was only registered as “a traditional doctor” in his native China and that some of his drugs which were seized during the raid were strictly for the Chinese market.

Dr Monyamane even advised that Dr Chen should close shop immediately since he was not a trained medical doctor. But this never happened until his death this week.