Enerst Legwale who was recently convicted for the murder of Thato Meswele in Oodi village in September 2015 has vowed never to get married again saying his marriage to the deceased’s sister, Dimpho Meswele, was worse than hell.
“I am a quite person by nature, but what I experienced in my marriage was extraordinary. I will never, ever get married again. Never!” he said with a trembling voice and tears welling up in his eyes.
When presenting his mitigation circumstances in court on Tuesday morning, Legwale told Justice Michael Leburu that he lost his job as an Internal Auditor at Lewis Group in 2018 as fellow employees were uncomfortable working with him after he was charged with the murder.
He said that he has struggled for many years to find a new job, sending “hundreds of applications” to different companies without any success.
He said that he made a mistake by building a relationship with William Mhatiwa, the traditional doctor who spilled the beans leading to the conviction of Legwale and his co-accused Hamadi Mkhuha.
“I have never been on the wrong side of the law and never had I intended to be there. I made a big mistake by dealing with a Zimbabwean fraudster who masqueraded as a traditional doctor,” he told the court as he wiped a few more drops of tears.
He said that he has five children who need his support, and an aging mother who is suffering from chronic illnesses that need a lot of care. The 50-year-old Legwale pleaded with the court to exercise restraint and spare him life for a second chance.
Speaking on behalf of Mkhuha, attorney Letlhogonolo Makgane said his client came to Botswana in 2001 as an undocumented immigrant but has never been on the wrong side of the law.
He said that although the punishment for murder is the death penalty, it would be undignified for Mkhuha to die in a foreign land after serving six years in prison for the offence.
But the DPP’s Merapelo Mokgosi would take none of the excuses saying the two men embarked on a pre-meditated murder project for four months, at some point, following the woman around, waiting to get an opportunity to kill her.
She said that they should be hanged. “The deceased died at a tender age, at the hands of two old men in the afternoon of their lives tailing her for four months. This is a premeditated murder and there are no extenuating circumstances in this case,” she said.
However, the defence insisted that Legwale’s belief that his ex-wife was bewitching him was an extenuating factor that the court should consider when passing sentence.
Thato Meswele was killed after she was mistaken for her elder sister Dimpho Meswele by Hamadi and another hired killer who has since died in an encounter with South African police in 2023.
The duo was hired by Legwale to kill Dimpho since their marriage was falling apart.
The matter was adjourned to August 16th when sentencing will be passed.
