A SOUTH African woman sentenced to the gallows in Botswana for murdering her best friend before marrying the friend’s husband takes her case to five foreign judges on the Appeals Court this week.
Marietta Bosch, who turned 50 on death row last week, will be represented by high-profile British barrister Desmond de Silva, who is reputed to have saved 35 people from the death penalty.
Bosch is only the fourth woman to be sentenced to death since Botswana’s independence from Britain in 1966.
The Appeals Court, under a provision in the independence constitution, is made up of judges from England, Scotland, South Africa, Nigeria and Zimbabwe.
Bosch, who maintained her innocence throughout her trial, was found guilty in December 1999 of shooting dead Maria Magdalene Wolmarans, a fellow South African, in 1996.
Bosch married Tienie Wolmarans, the dead woman’s husband, three months after the murder. Wolmarans has denied cheating on his first wife or conspiring to murder her.
Bosch charged that the real murderer was Hennie Coetzee, the general manager of Kwena Rocla Botswana, the company where the dead woman was employed as financial manager.
Bosch’s lawyer, Edward Fashole-Luke, accused Coetzee of murdering her on the eve of a company audit because she was about to disclose financial irregularities.
Bosch admitted smuggling in the murder weapon, a pistol, from South Africa, but said she did it at Coetzee’s insistence, and gave the gun to him.
Coetzee moved to Ghana immediately after Bosch’s arrest, but returned under immunity from prosecution to testify against her.
Under that agreement, Coetzee cannot be prosecuted for the murder, or for any offences relating to it, including the illegal possession of a firearm.
Bosch’s sister-in-law, Judith, also testified for the prosecution, alleging that Bosch had “relations” with Wolmarans before his wife’s death.
Judge Isaac Aboagye, who tried Bosch, said in delivering his judgment that “the crime was carefully planned with the motive of enabling you to take over the husband of the deceased”.
A total of 33 people have been executed in Botswana since independence, the last in January 1998. – AFP