PROF MALEMA, Gaborone | Tuesday
BOTSWANA hanged alleged love-triangle murderess Mariette Bosch in secret while the African Commission of Human and People’s Rights was still considering a petition she had filed, while further pleas on clemency were being prepared, and before a psychiatrist had had time to present his evaluation of Bosch.
They also told her husband Tienie that he could not have a scheduled visit with her on Friday because there was ostensibly an inspection on. I was told neither I, nor the children could see her. Now I know they were lying, he said bitterly.
Bosch was hanged on Saturday morning without warning her family after an appeal court rejected her claim that she was innocent of murdering her best friend to marry her husband.
Her final note to her husband said “They did not want me to see you”. Wolmarans said he was telephoned early Sunday evening and told to be at the prison on Monday morning. He was then told his wife had been hanged.
“That was the first I knew about it,” he said. “They read her the death warrant on Friday night. The note she left said they would not allow her to see me or the children on Friday. They kept the whole thing a secret from us.”
Wolmarans accused the South African government of not doing enough to save Bosch.
Bosch was executed at Gaborone maximum prison by an anonymous hangman who was paid 500 pula (about $100) for the job, officials said. Her body was buried shortly afterwards in the prison graveyard.
I am a retributionist and I believe that the gravity of the penalty must be commensurate with the gravity of the offence,” President Festus Mogae told a news conference.
Bosch maintained throughout her trial and appeal that the real killer was the general manager of the company where her rival worked, who she said had feared Wolmarans would reveal financial malfeasance.
News of the execution has sparked outrage from human rights groups. The South African Human Rights Commission, which had asked President Mbeki to intervene in February, described the unexpected execution as shocking.
Said Vinodh Jaichand, national director of Lawyers for Human Rights in South Africa: “We are shocked and outraged, as I think many people in this country are. There were certain levels of decency not undertaken by the Botswana government. We feel the death penalty is horrendous enough without the suddenness sprung on the deceased’s family.” – AFP
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