A Killer Politician: The Murder Trial of Lesotho's Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Lesotho, Thomas Thabane, is currently being investigated by the nation’s police for the 2017 murder of his estranged wife, Lipolelo Thabane. His current wife, Maesaiah Thabane, has already been charged with the murder and is set to go to court on March 17 for her sentencing. The pair is also being investigated for the attempted murder of family friend Thato Sibolla, who was with Lipolelo during the attack. The case has shocked the small African nation and threatens to destabilize the country, which is no stranger to corruption amongst government officials. If Thabane is convicted, he will be the first African leader to be charged with murder while still in office.
On June 14, 2017, Lipolelo was shot dead in a car outside of her home in the nation's capital of Maseru. By then, Lipolelo and Thomas were already separated and he was living his new partner, Maesaiah. Lipolelo’s murder followed a legal battle between her and Maesaiah, in which the courts ruled that as long as Lipolelo remained legally married to Mr. Thabane, she and not Maesaiah was entitled to the position of First Lady. According to Deutsche Welle, Lipolelo refused to grant her husband a divorce despite their separation. Just days after her murder, Thabane became Prime Minister with Maesaiah by his side at his inauguration. Two months later, the two were married in front of a crowd in Maseru.
In the months following the murder, suspicion about Mr. Thabane and his new wife's involvement in the murder grew. In December 2019, Lesotho's chief of police requested assistance on the case from the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. After examining the case further, Lesotho’s chief of police penned a letter to Thabane: "Our investigations have shown that telephone communications were made from the crime scene," he wrote. "The number called was yours." Following this letter, Thabane attempted to have the chief of police removed from his position, even going so far as pushing for his arrest; this was an official order that was refused by the army chief.
In January, an arrest warrant was issued for Maesaiah on grounds of her alleged involvement in the murder. Shortly after, she fled to nearby South Africa, though she returned soon after. When the prime minister's son, Potlako Thabane, was asked about this, he stated that "[Maesaiah's] security personnel were removed, just like that. Everyone can imagine what was going to happen. She was just protecting herself." Despite Potlako’s insistence on Maesaiah's innocence, his sister, Mabatsoeneng Hlaethe, remains skeptical. When asked about her father, she stated that "he is not the kind of guy to plot a killing, I still stand to be corrected. But I have different convictions as far as his new wife is concerned." On the 5th of February, Maesaiah was officially charged with the murder of Lipolelo and taken into custody. She has since been released on bail of 1,075 loti (£52).
On the 20th of February, police announced that Thabane would be charged with the murder of Lipolelo. However, when he was expected in court the following morning, the Prime Minister failed to appear. His office claimed that he was in South Africa for medical treatment and denied that he was fleeing, despite the fact that he left mere hours for this purported trip before he was meant to stand trial. Upon his return to Lesotho a short time later, Thabane's legal team began insisting that due to the diplomatic immunity afforded to the Prime Minister and his wife by the grace of their positions, they cannot be charged with the murder of Lipolelo. Yet, while Lesotho's constitution states that the nation's king cannot be charged with a crime, it does not specify whether this legal caveat extends to the office of the prime minister. Alongside heated debates about evidence from the night of the murder, this constitional ambiguity has resulted in the case was referred to the High Court, and will be decided on by the Constitutional Court.
Since the prime minister and his wife have come under investigation, many have called for Thabane's resignation, including those within Thabane's government. As Mathibeli Mokhothu, the opposition's parliamentary leader, explained, "people no longer trust the government. The governing parties are disintegrating. Nothing is changing for the people. The country's development is at a standstill." Thabane's party, the All Basotho Convention (ABC), have called for the prime minister to step down and have begun the process of looking for his successor. Despite this, Thabane maintains that he will not step down until July of this year: this forecast lines up with when the Prime Minister originally planned to retire from politics.
The nation of Lesotho is no stranger to political corruption. One notable example of this was notably seen in 2014, when Thabane fled the country after an alleged coup d’etat, sending the government into disarray. Later, it was alleged that the coup was a hoax carried out by high-ranking government officials in order to distract from corruption accusations. The investigation of the coup was later dropped and no charges were filed. Despite this, there is reason to believe that Thabane’s murder trial will be different. The involvement of outside investigatory bodies and the persistence of the chief of police in the Thabane case have signaled a shift away from the cover-ups of the past. As political scientist Kopano Kakoa explains, “for the first time, I think, the police are reacting in this particular manner, perhaps in a positive way," he told Deutsche Welle. "In the past, the police have been cowed by this kind of situation... A lot of crimes have not been investigated." For many, Thabane’s upcoming trial has provided hope for a new era for Lesotho, one marked by justice rather than turning a blind eye to such crimes.
