Charles back in custody
At lunchtime last Thursday, undercover CID officers burst into action down Ghetto’s bustling Haskins Street, pouncing on Francistown’s most wanted, Nangube Charles.
The cops had been looking for the accused killer for well over a year, when the 49-year-old stopped turning up for court shortly after being granted bail on 25 January 2022.
Hauled before court on Friday morning, Charles, who made the front page of last week’s Voice, seemed slightly bemused at all the fuss surrounding him.
Looking frail and harmless, a far cry from the youth thought to have terrorized the villages of Marapong and Sebina in the early 2000s, Charles explained he made a mistake by missing a scheduled court appearance and was terrified of how the cops would react.
“I missed court mention at first then I got scared to go back because I thought the police were going to beat me,” he maintained, adding he does not have a problem with being taken back to prison, a place he knows all too well.
“I was not hiding, it is just that I was scared of the police. I just lived freely, that is why they managed to arrest me in town near Knockout,” continued Charles, who, upon leaving court, warned The Voice’s reporter that he would sue her for all the pictures she takes of him.
Remanded in custody, the suspect, who hails from Mautlakgang cattlepost but was living in Gerald Estates at the time of his arrest, returns to court on 17 October for status update in his latest murder case.
In total, Charles grim history includes three murder charges across four decades, dating back to 1994 when he allegedly shot dead Gadzani Mokhize in Marapong.
Although he spent 11 years behind bars, the case never went to trial and in 2005 he was set free by Justice John Mosojane on the basis it was unjust to detain a man for so long without trial.
In April 2008, Charles found himself locked up again, this time accused of the brutal murder of Mummy Mogoya. Stabbed to death, the 27-year-old’s butchered body was found dumped near Chedu Choga shopping complex in Block One.
The Voice’s efforts to find out how this case ended hit a brick wall, however, as the police seemingly had no knowledge of it.
“He told us he was released in 2012, that’s all the information we have at the moment,” admitted an insider.
Charles’ bloody past turned a deadlier shade of red in August 2021, when he was charged with the murder of his pregnant girlfriend, Oratile Makobo, 21, who was stabbed to death for in Makobo village.
It was this latest brush with the law, which Charles was on bail for when he went awol.
