- Batswana human rights groups today strongly condemned the secret execution of Lehlohonolo Bernard Kobedi this morning. There were concerns over what had "become a trend of secretive and arbitrary conduct by the government of Botswana in administering the death penalty."
Mr Kobedi was executed today without the knowledge of his lawyers, according to Ditshwanelo, the Botswana Centre for Human Rights. Advocates for Mr Kobedi had not been allowed to see him in the days before his execution.
Mr Kobedi formally requested, in writing, that Ditshwanelo be allowed to visit him and the group had requested, in writing, permission to visit. "The Commissioner of Prisons denied us access to Mr Kobedi," the group says in a statement issued today.
In the more than 10 years since Mr Kobedi was first arrested in 1993, and five years since he was first sentenced to death before the High Court in 1998, Ditshwanelo had spoken out repeatedly against the irregularities and arbitrariness that had consistently marred his case. Mr Kobedi was represented in his original hearing by pro deo counsel who was unfamiliar with trying death penalty cases, and who failed to raise important legal and factual issues on his behalf.
During the five years after his initial trial, Mr Kobedi was represented by four different sets of lawyers and saw his appeal go from the Court of Appeal to the High Court and then, in January 2003, to the Court of Appeal again. By the time he reached his final appeal, he had been on death row for 56 months.
The Court rejected his appeal because of procedural technicalities, shifting moral responsibility for Mr Kobedi's life to the Clemency Committee and the President.
In its opinion of March 2003, the Court of Appeal had asked Botswana's President Festus Mogae to consider clemency: "[We] respectfully draw the attention of the [Clemency] Committee to the submissions made on behalf of the appellant to this Court as to his state of physical and mental health ... and that he has been incarcerated on death row [for 56 months]."
- We may never know whether the Clemency Committee considered the Court's recommendation, or the advocacy of Mr Kobedi's lawyers and Ditshwanelo, the group says. The Committee makes public neither the reasons for its decisions nor even the timetable for reaching decisions.
In February 1999 and June 2003, Ditshwanelo further had made formal requests to the Office of the President for basic information regarding the workings of the Clemency Committee. "To date, we have not received a response," the group says.
The human rights group said it believed that the conviction and execution of Mr Kobedi served as "another recent warning that justice should not have two standards, one for the rich and powerful and one for the poor and voiceless."
- We urge the Government of Botswana to act to reform the pro deo system, so future defendants do not have to suffer the irregularities and lack of expertise which marked Mr Kobedi's initial trial, Ditshwanelo said.
Further, the group repeated its warning that lack of transparency of procedures was "a serious threat to democracy and good governance." Decisions made in secret by the government of Botswana were undermining the values stated in a government plan to increase transparency.
- In a liberal democracy, such as Botswana, which is committed to equal treatment under the law, the death penalty is neither reasonable nor justifiable, the group concluded. Ditshwanelo said it was to continue with its campaign to abolish the death penalty in Botswana.
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