Mokone challenges his 2014 arrest

Attorney representing Sunday Standard Editor, Outsa Mokone, Dick Bayford has argued that the arrest and detention of his client by Security Agents in 2014 was unlawful. He said this week before Acting Judge for Lobatse High Court, Jennifer Dube.

Mokone has approached the court to challenge the lawfulness of his arrest, detention and refusal to legal representation in his 2014 controversial sedition case. Bayford argued before Justice Dube that at the time of arresting Mokone there was no evidence of oath on the warrant of arrest and search. “The warrant sought was unlawful and we submit that it be set aside. My client was also not given legal representation within a reasonable time,” said Bayford who further accused the police to have sat on the warrant of arrest and only to execute it six days later.

Nchunga Nchunga who was representing the state said the arrest was lawful. He also refuted what was carried in the then newspaper article. “This incident has not been investigated. Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP) has not examined whether there is anything to determine in the case. The President was not involved in the car accident and it is not true that he was alone in a black Range Rover SUV,” said Nchunga adding that everything in the affidavits of Mokone was distorted.

“The Attorney General wrote to the applicants and there was a meeting at Police Commissioner’s office to set the record straight. That meeting and the letter could have ended the case,” said Nchunga.  In his affidavits Mokone argues that sedition in terms of the sections 50 and 51 in the penal code, is in itself a violation of freedom of expression.

“I aver that outrageousness, untruthfulness and the defamatory or demeaning character of a story does not render it seditious. It is difficult to see how an allegation that the President was involved in an accident in which no fault is attributed to him can be perceived to be seditious, even if same turns out to be false.”

Mokone was arrested after the publication published a story in August 2014 headlined ‘President hit in car accident while driving alone at night’. The author of the story, Edgar Tsimane has since fled the country allegedly fearing for his life after a tip-off.  The judgment will be delivered on the 26th August 2016.