DPP drops criminal charges against Paledi
Former Deputy Police Commissioner (Operations) and Director General of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) Victor Bruno Paledi is off the hook as the state has withdrawn criminal charges against him.
Paledi was charged alongside former President Ian Khama, former Director General of Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) Isaac Kgosi and former Botswana Police Commissioner Keabetswe Makgophe in the unlawful possession of fire-arms and ammunition case. Paledi was accused of aideding Khama and Kgosi to acquire weapons of war and ammunition registration certificates. Paledi was charged on three counts of aiding and abetting unlawful possession of firearms.
Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Nomsa Moatswi stated that they are discontinuing the criminal proceedings against Paledi. This is according to a Nolle Prosequi (a formal notice of abandonment) seen by this publication by Moatswi in pursuance of her powers under section 51 A (3)(c) of the Constitution and Section 10 of the criminal Procedure and Evidence Act.
“I Nomsa Sinki Moatswi, the Director of Public Prosecutions for the republic of Botswana do hereby stop and discontinue criminal proceedings against the accused person, Victor Bruno Paledi in the Gaborone Administrative District, criminal case Number CMMRS-000007/21, being the case of the State vs. Victor Bruno Paledi presently before Village Magistrate Court”.
Sources within the Government Enclave have revealed that the ‘trumped-up’ charges were due to an ill-advised decision. Paledi and others were arrested and charged through a joint operation by Directorate of Intelligence Services (DIS) and the Police. According to insiders the DIS pushed for the accused persons to be slapped with the charges.
“The worst thing for Paledi and by extension Makgophe, is that all they did was administrative work. In our understanding most of the guns were given as a sovereign from Israel. The duo was just doing administrative work because customs cleared those fire-arms to enter into the country,” a source said.
Another source said, “We think the issue was that Paledi once clashed with the DIS over some of the cases he was handling while he was DG at DCEC. That is the reason why he was dragged into this mess. I mean how can you have a man in one dock with the people (Khama and Kgosi) he once investigated. How did he aid them?”
One of the controversial cases that was investigated during Paledi’s era is the National Petroleum Fund (NPF) case. It is alleged that Paledi became a casualty because he did not allow the DIS to step into the DCEC territory and push the DCEC to charge people while there is no concrete proof. This according to sources, is what resulted in Paledi being pushed out of DCEC and transferred to the Ministry of Defence.
Paledi was in 2019 transferred from DCEC to the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security as Secretary for Defence, Justice and Security. He would later be transferred to the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Culture as Deputy Permanent Secretary where his contract was later not renewed in 2022.
Paledi’s lawyer, Kgololesego Segabo of Segabo Attorneys based in Palapye told Botswana Guardian in an interview that it is regrettable that his client was charged in the first place. He said Paledi went through a tough time and was humiliated by the state. He said his client was implicated in things he knows nothing about.
“Even to this day we are still trying to make sense of those charges. This has been a horrible journey for our client. There is a painting or a picture which was intended to paint him with a bad brush. I mean he has been before the court for two years and he has not taken a plea. There has been no statement availed,” Segabo said.
According to Segabo, they are weighing their options on the way forward.