MASERU — A former accountant of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA), Peggy Thakeli, will spend the next eight years behind bars after the Court of Appeal on Friday threw out her appeal against conviction and sentence by the High Court. Thakeli had appealed to the Court of Appeal after the High Court had last […]
MASERU — A Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) soldier will spend the next decade in prison after the Court of Appeal on Friday upheld his two murder convictions reached earlier by the High Court. Moeketsi Scout had appealed against a High Court judgment in February which found him guilty of the murders of Liqabang Mohlerepe and […]
MASERU — A 64-year-old man from Ha-‘Masana last week told the Maseru Magistrate’s Court that the 160 marijuana plants that police had found in his garden last March were meant to be fodder for his cattle. He also told the court that he used the marijuana plants for medicinal purposes. Makabane Makabane said this as […]
THABA-BOSIU — It all started as an experiment in 1997. Pule (not his real name) was just 12. An experimental sip of the ‘holy waters’ soon turned into a habit. And by the time Pule reached his mid-teens, the boy was a wreck. The drinking only intensified when he rolled for tertiary studies in South […]
MASERU — A National Security Services (NSS) secret agent and his wife were on Tuesday each sentenced to four years in prison for robbery. The court heard how agent Thebets’oana Lelala, 30, and his wife Lieketseng Mohloki, 24, who works at the National University of Lesotho, tricked Marethabile Moepi before robbing her of M4 300. […]
MASERU — The Road Safety Department says it will today launch a new driver training and examination system in an effort to reduce fatalities on the country’s roads. The principal instructor in the department, Neo Khoaele, said the department will introduce a new syllabus to train the country’s drivers. Lesotho did not have its own […]
MASERU — Khauhelo Ralitapole, the leader of the Basutoland African Congress (BAC), says she is stepping down “to make way for new blood”, the Lesotho Times can reveal. Ralitapole said she will not be contesting for a leadership position at the party’s elective conference on Saturday. Ralitapole told the Lesotho Times yesterday that relinquishing the […]
MASERU — Parliament this week agreed to postpone the local government elections by twelve months after it passed the Local Government (Amendment) Bill 2010. The Bill was tabled on April 16. The government argued that the postponement will give parliament time to amend the Local Government Elections Act 2004 to avoid disputes. In his submission […]
MASERU — The race for the May 22 by-election has kicked off in the Mpharane constituency in Mohale’s Hoek. Seven candidates — three independents and four from Lesotho’s major political parties — are vying for the seat. The seat fell vacant after the death of ruling Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) party legislator, Constantinus Ramakatsa, […]
MASERU — High Court judge ’Maseforo Mahase on Monday withdrew from a civil case in which Police Commissioner ’Malejaka Letooane is facing trial for allegedly awarding a tender to a disqualified supplier. Letooane, together with Home Affairs principal secretary, Lefa Mokotjo, are facing trial for allegedly corruptly awarding a tender to supply police uniforms […]
MASERU — The Court of Appeal last Friday postponed a case between civil servants and money lending firms to October to allow the two parties a chance to argue on the correct interpretation of Lesotho’s money lending laws. “Parties should make a case ready for proper interpretation of the law. It is for the interest […]
MASERU — In 2006, 44-year-old Lekhokoho Kokome was on the verge of despair. Two years earlier Kokome had been diagnosed with HIV, the virus that causes Aids. His health was fast deteriorating. But just when he was losing all hope, an international medical and humanitarian agency, Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), arrived. MSF set base in […]
MASERU — When Macaefa Billy walks into the dock next Friday his fate will not be in his hands. Neither will it be in the hands of his lawyer Haae Phofoolo. The secretary-general of the All Basotho Convention (ABC) party will face three prominent Appeal Court judges. Justices I G Farlan, C T Howie and […]
MASERU — The chief economic planner for the Ministry of Agriculture came under attack from members of the community parliament over the government’s failure to deliver agricultural services. The community parliament is an informal grouping of rural people organised by the Development for Peace Education (DPE), a civic group based in Maseru. It seeks to […]
BATTLE lines are drawn in the impoverished rural constituency of Hololo, about 130km north of the capital Maseru. The nine candidates — four independents and the rest from Lesotho’s major political parties — have promised each other a fight to the finish. The by-election has been set for May 22. The seat fell vacant last […]
BUTHA-BUTHE — Lesotho Congress for Democracy (LCD) women’s league boss, ‘Mathabiso Lepono, last Sunday launched a scathing attack on opposition leader Thomas Thabane describing him as a “deceitful leader” bent on causing confusion in Lesotho. Thabane is a former government minister who quit the ruling party to form the opposition All Basotho Convention (ABC) party […]
MASERU — A Maseru lawyer, Advocate Nketsi Makhera, who is facing a M500 000 theft charge for illegally selling a textile firm, was freed on M500 bail on Monday. Makhera, 32, who was the company’s provisional liquidator, is alleged to have sold C-River textile firm to a Chinese national Xie en Ming for M500 000. […]
MASERU — Prosperity Insurance Brokers wants the Central Bank of Lesotho (CBL) to reverse its decision to revoke its operating licence which was cancelled last October. Last week the troubled insurance broker lodged an urgent application in the High Court challenging the CBL’s decision. The company also wants High Court judge ’Maseshophe Hlajoane to order […]
MASERU — Two women from Ha-Ts’iu appeared in the Magistrate’s Court on Monday charged with abducting an infant in January. ‘Mathuso Ntiese, 58, and ‘Maselebalo Ntaolane, 51, are alleged to have abducted a week-old baby on January 30. It is alleged that Ntaolane stole the baby from a block of flats where its mother Mahali […]
MASERU — A South African pilot working in Lesotho will rue the day he asked a stranger to help him withdraw money from an ATM in the Maseru industrial area two weeks ago. This after the seemingly friendly stranger fled with his bank card and used it to withdraw M7 230 from his account. According […]
MASERU — Deafening music pumps from two powerful speakers in a makeshift stall along Kingsway Street in Maseru. On the stall is a huge assortment of music compact discs (CDs) and digital video discs (DVDs). But most of these do not look genuine at all. Rather the CDs and DVDs appear pirated. There clearly appears […]
MASERU — Professor Adelani Ogunrinade, the former vice-chancellor of the National University of Lesotho (NUL), has died. The Nigerian academic died at Medi-Clinic in Bloemfontein on Saturday afternoon a week after he was rushed to the hospital. Ogunrinade had earlier been discovered by his security guard in a semi-conscious state in his bathroom at his […]
MASERU — Lesotho Defence Force (LDF) soldiers co-operated with the enemy during the attacks at Makoanyane military base and the State House on April 22 last year, a lawyer assisting the commission investigating the attacks has said. In his submission to the commission, Tsebang Putsoane, said this week that the LDF soldiers breached security regulations […]
MASERU — Nine people died in road accidents during the Easter holiday, police figures show. Police spokesperson Masupha Masupha said there were 61 reported road accidents involving 100 vehicles during the Easter holiday last weekend. “Mafeteng had the highest death toll. Four people died in road accidents in that district,” Masupha said. Two people died […]
MASERU — The president of the Law Society of Lesotho Advocate Zwelakhe Mda wants incompetent High Court judges to be “named and shamed”. Mda said this while addressing the Lesotho Court of Appeal at the opening of its first session yesterday. Without naming names, Mda said there were some High Court judges who are undermining […]
MASERU — Five men aged between 30 and 40 were killed in a fire exchange with the police in Mafeteng last week. Another man was shot in the crossfire. The men were part of a suspected gang wanted by the police for murder, car theft and armed robbery. Police spokesperson Masupha Masupha said the police […]
MASERU — Professor Adelani Ogunrinade, who died last Saturday, was born 56 years ago in Nigeria. He graduated from the University of Ibadan with a degree in veterinary medicine obtaining distinctions in medicine, surgery and parasitology in 1974. He won the University of Ibadan Prize for Postgraduate Studies, the DH Hill Prize in Veterinary Medicine […]
MASERU — A 25-year-old man was on Tuesday ordered to undergo an HIV test after he was convicted of abducting and raping a 16-year-old girl by the Maseru Magistrate’s Court. Sekonyana Mabesa, from Mazenod, was found guilty of abducting the girl and raping her outside her home on August 30 2009. Mabesa pleaded guilty to […]
MASERU — Former Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) accountant Peggy Thakeli yesterday asked the Court of Appeal to set aside the conviction imposed on her by the High Court for fraud. The High Court in July last year slapped Thakeli with an eight-year jail term for facilitating the fraudulent transfer of M2.4 million from the […]
MASERU — Opposition parties claim the government admitted at a Monday meeting that it had botched the implementation of the controversial Mixed Member Proportional (MMP) electoral model. There are also claims that at the same meeting held at the United Nations House the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) also admitted, for the first time since the […]
