Following the disappearance of Maesiah Thabane, after an arrest warrant was issued for her connection to the killing of her husband’s former wife, Lipolelo Thabane, Maesiah is set to be charged with murder.
Late Lipolelo Thabane was entangled in a difficult divorce before she was shot dead while travelling home with a friend on the outskirts of Maseru on the eve of her husband’s inauguration in June 2017. Shortly after this, Thomas Thabane got married to Maesiah.
Maesiah Thabane, who fled the country on January 10, 2020, to escape arrest and hide in neighbouring South Africa, returned to Lesotho on Tuesday afternoon. On her arrival, she handed herself to police in the capital, Maseru. She was picked up on the border with South Africa following an arrangement between her lawyer and the police. She has been charged with murder alongside eight others who are in Lesotho and South Africa. The 42-year old is set to spend the night in custody and will be taken to court after the director of public prosecutions prepares the charge sheet.
Two weeks ago, police interrogated the prime minister following the alleged use of his mobile phone to communicate with whoever was at the scene of the killing. The interrogation was geared to addressing a letter dated 23rd December 2019 that surfaced from Holomo Molibeli, Lesotho’s police chief after Thabane tried to suspend him over a separate matter. It claimed that communication records from the day of the crime picked up Thabane’s mobile phone number.
His connection to the case also instigated pressure from his party, the All Basotho Convention (ABC) to demand his resignation adding that he was hampering investigations into the killing and is no longer fit to lead.
In response to the pressure from senior members of the governing party as well as the hundreds of opposition supporters who marched through the streets of Maseru in a protest demanding he steps down, Thabane announced he was planning to step down. The premier did not specify when he would resign, only saying it would occur “when all is in order.”
