Court to hear details of illegal Botswana deportation fiasco • Friday 31 October 2014 -by Dianne Hawker – ENCA news PRETORIA – The department of Home Affairs says it has suspended three officials who were involved in an illegal deportation. Two other officials could be in line for suspension, after the department deported Botswana murder accused and escape artist Edwin Samotse in August. On Friday the Department of Home Affairs will have to appear in court to explain why it deported Botswana national Edwin Samotse to face a possible death penalty. Earlier this year Samotse was sent back by Home Affairs, despite a court order. Samotse allegedly escaped from a Botswana prison in March after hed been arrested on murder charges in the country. He allegedly escaped to South Africa but was soon deported. SA officials handed Samotse to authorities in Botswana but he allegedly escaped prison a second time. Two previous Constitutional High Court rulings have prohibited the deportation of foreign nationals who face a possible death sentence in other countries. In this case, Samotse’s Legal Aid lawyers had approached court to halt his deportation, but by the time they won the case Samotse had already been spirited across the border. The department has submitted a report to the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria following a court order demanding an explanation. In the report Home Affairs Director General Mkuseni Apleni tells the court that the three officials involved in the deportation were suspended and their disciplinary process is currently underway. The department has presented its case on charges of gross misconduct against Madimetja Mogale, Albertus Venter and Samuel Matlou in a joint disciplinary hearing. In the investigation preceding the disciplinary process the department found that the officials had been aware that the deportation was not allowed, and had in fact seen the ministerial order barring Samotse’s deportation. The three “personally initiated the process of surrendering Samotse to Botswana, without any instruction and/or request to do so from any person in Head Office,” Apleni says in the report. However the officials say they followed departmental procedure, and submitted all the relevant documentation to their superiors. Matlou, who actually took Samotse to the Botswana border, says he received the authorisation documentation from Venter and was instructed by Mogale to conduct the deportation. Matlou said he first heard of the order by the Minister of Justice, halting the deportation, when he collected Samotse from the Department of Correctional Services. He however continued with the deportation and handed Samotse to Botswana immigration officials. Venter and Mogale say they were following departmental policy, saying the deportation was signed off by Nora Maleswana in the directorate of deportations. In court papers, Apleni says he intends to suspend Maselwana along with Deputy-Director General of Deportation Co-ordination, George Masanabo. Apleni claims there are various emails “which constitute damning evidence against Masanabo”. “It is common knowledge that Masanabo knew that Botswana is a retentionist (death penalty) country…” Apleni says in court papers. “As a matter of fact, Masanabo is referred to by the Constitutional Court in the (Emmanuel) Tsebe judgment as one of the officials involved in the attempted unlawful deportation of Tsebe.” Apleni also alleges that Masanabo attended a management meeting two days before the deportation, on 11 August, in which he did not mention knowing Samotse’s whereabouts. “More importantly, he failed to disclose that there was a request for a warrant for Samotse’s removal to Botswana, which clearly indicated that there were moves afoot to remove Samotse to Botswana,” Apleni says in his report. Samotse’s lawyer, Herman Alberts, and Lawyers for Human Rights (LHR) are expected to respond to Apleni’s report in court on Friday. David Cote, from LHR, says the operating procedures of Home Affairs should be made public to ensure accountability. “One thing that the court did bring up in the previous hearing is that there appears to be a corporate culture, a certain approach to dealing with foreign nationals within the department of Home Affairs wherein they don’t take the rights of foreign nationals very seriously. And there is a very serious concern that court orders are not being followed. (Another concern) is that when attorneys bring issue to the department’s attention, those concerns are not being addressed either,” Cote said.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 08:38:52 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015