Ntsie to be sentenced in absentia

Nat Molomo MASERU
— Controversial cameraman, Habofanoe Ntsie, might have fled the country but the
High Court will still deliver judgment on his double-murder trial. Ntsie
disappeared from the court on March 26 when Justice ’Maseforo Mahase was about
to finish reading her judgment in a case in which he is accused of killing
Souru Masupha and Habaka Mahao in November 2004. He
has not been seen in Lesotho since then. His
lawyer says he has not heard from him either. The
judgment has been gathering dust in Justice Mahase’s chambers, leaving the
crown, his lawyers, relatives of Masupha and Mahao to guess its contents. But
now the crown says it wants Justice Mahase to finish reading the judgment and
sentence Ntsie in absentia. On
Monday the crown moved a motion requesting Justice Mahase to finish reading her
judgment. 

Phoofolo
& Co, the law firm representing Ntsie, has since been notified of the
crown’s intention. “The
reason for this application is that the honourable court is entitled to deliver
judgment even in the absence of the accused, up to the stage of delivery of
verdict,” said crown counsel Advocate Abraam Lenono in a July 20 letter to the
High Court and Phoofolo & Co. On
Friday Advocate Monaheng Rasekoai who is now handling Ntsie’s case said he will
not object to the application to have the judgment read. “We
have no objection to the court to continue reading judgment in his absence
because we do not know where he is. I feel that we do not suffer any prejudice
when the judgment is read in his absence,” Rasekoai said. After
Ntsie disappeared from the court during lunch break on March 26 his wife
claimed that he had been rushed to hospital in Bloemfontein, South Africa.

Justice
Mahase’s immediate reaction was to issue a warrant of arrest for him and order
his wife to come to court on March 30 to explain her husband’s whereabouts. A
few days later Haae Phoofolo, his lawyer at that time, informed the court he
had received a doctors’ letter indicating that Ntsie was indeed ill and needed
two weeks to recover. But
when Ntsie’s wife failed to come to court as ordered, Justice Mahase issued a
warrant of arrest for her too. The
case was then postponed to April 25 but  
when it resumed Ntsie was nowhere to be seen.

At
that time Phoofolo said it was his responsibility and that of the police to
make sure that Ntsie is arrested. However,
police spokesperson Masupha Masupha said the police had done their part. “After
the warrant of arrest was issued, we had to go and confirm if indeed Ntsie was
sick as per his doctor’s letter. We did that and reported to the court that
indeed he was sick,” Masupha said then.

“In
that way our part was done and we can only arrest him if another warrant is
issued because the first one fell off after the explanation that we had given
to the court.

“It
is now his legal representative’s duty to find him unless we get another
warrant,” he said. If
Ntsie had been convicted he would have been immediately sent to prison because
murder convicts don’t get bail pending appeal. He
would have then waited for the Court of Appeal session in August to hear his
appeal. During
the trial, Ntsie who claims to be an “international journalist”, had argued
that he shot Mahao and Masupha in self-defence. Ntsie
is a controversial figure who has had a brush with the law in the past. In
April 2010 he faced trial for alleged reckless and negligent driving. The
court heard that Ntsie hit a car belonging to National Security Services agent,
Sekake Mohale, and fled the accident scene before the police arrived. Ntsie
has also claimed that he knows who killed former Prime Minister Pakalitha
Mosisili’s son, Maile, in 2002. Maile’s
murder has never been solved. Lesotho
is one of the Southern African Development Community countries which still
applies capital punishment on murder cases. However,
judges have been reluctant to send murder convicts to the gallows. Capital punishment was
last applied in 1994.