Ntsie’s bid to be sent back to SA thrown out

MASERU – A High Court judge has dismissed an urgent application filed by Habofane Ntsie to be sent back to South Africa on the basis that he was abducted when he was brought to Lesotho.

Justice ’Maseforo Mahase, who was expected to hear Ntsie’s extenuating circumstances and sentence him for the double murders yesterday, said there was no evidence that he was abducted.

Justice Mahase, who did not read the whole judgment saying it was not typed as her secretary was not available, said Ntsie failed to convince her that he left South Africa to Lesotho illegally.

Ntsie, who disappeared from the court after Justice Mahase found him guilty of two counts of murders in 2012 and fled to South Africa, was about to be sentenced late last month when he applied to be sent back to South Africa.

Ntsie, whose case kept being postponed ever since his extradition to Lesotho in March this year because he had no lawyer to represent him, had told Justice Mahase that he was abducted in South Africa and brought back to Lesotho illegally.

He pleaded with the court to send him back to South Africa.

Ntsie will finally be sentenced next year in February after both lawyers present mitigation factors on his sentencing.

Justice Mahase told him that he did not provide the court with enough evidence that the police who arrested him in South Africa and handed him over to the Lesotho police had abducted him.

“The court is not convinced that he was unlawfully extradited,” she said.

“Had he not fled in the first place none of this could have happened,” the judge said.

“The blame is to be put on the accused as he escaped during the sentencing and had to be found,” she said.

She said the delay was done by him as he escaped more than ten years ago.

Justice Mahase further said the crown convinced the court that Ntsie was lawfully extradited as they provided the court with all extradition documents during the exchange at the border post.

Justice Mahase explained that if Ntsie was serious about his desire to go back to South Africa, “he should go to another court not this one”.

Ntsie disappeared on March 26, 2012 while Justice Mahase was reading his judgement after convicting him of the double murder of Habaka Mahao and Souru Masupha in 2004 at Lancers’ Gap.

’Malimpho Majoro