Maseru - Hours before she was shot dead on
the outskirts of the capital, Lesotho's former first lady,
Lipolelo Thabane, made a surprising decision.
According to both a close friend and a well-connected
businessman, she agreed to divorce her husband, Prime Minister
Thomas Thabane, after years of refusing to make way for her
rival.
With the blessing of that rival - Thabane's current wife and
first lady - the entrepreneur, Teboho Mojapela, met with
Lipolelo on the day of her death to mediate.
"She said: '...I am ready to free him'," Mojapela told
Reuters. "'I just want to be looked after.'"
The exchange was confirmed by her friend and confidante
Thato Sibolla, who was present at the meeting.
Lipolelo's change of heart, which has not previously been
reported, adds a new twist to a scandal that has attracted rare
international attention to Lesotho, the tiny kingdom of 2
million people tucked inside South Africa.
Gunmen ambushed Lipolelo, 58, in her car as she made her way
home on the outskirts of the capital Maseru on June 14, 2017.
Sibolla was with her in the vehicle.
Two days after the killing, Thabane, now 80, was sworn in
for a second term. Two months later he married Lipolelo's
successor and one-time rival Maesaiah Liabiloe Ramoholi, now
Maesaiah Thabane.
Police charged Maesaiah with Lipolelo's murder in February
and named Thabane as a suspect, although he has yet to be
formally charged in court. They both deny any involvement.
In Thabane's case, the high court must first decide whether
he can be prosecuted while in office. The case has been
postponed indefinitely due to the Covid-19 pandemic, although
Lesotho remains one of a small number of nations yet to register
a case.
Thabane's own government is trying to force him from office
before the end of July, when he said he was willing to step
down. It is unclear if he will bow to their demands.
Thabane and his wife declined to be interviewed or respond
to written questions while the case is pending, and their
lawyers said they had been instructed not to speak to the press.
"He's waiting for the police to lodge a complaint to court
so that he can clear his name," Thabane's private secretary,
Thabo Thakalekoala, said by telephone.
Lesotho's Prime Minister, Thomas Thabane, left, and his wife Maesaiah, right, seated in court in Maseru in February 2020. Picture: AP
First lady Maesaiah also "wants to present her side of the
story," her adviser, Manama Letsie, told Reuters. "But she has
already been found guilty in the public (opinion) court."
The high-profile murder case has destabilised a country
already in turmoil.
Lesotho has seen four military coups since independence from
Britain in 1966. South Africa, for whom this nation of jagged
green mountains is an important source of tap water, is
sometimes drawn in to help resolve upheavals, and it has stepped
in as mediator in the latest crisis.
FATEFUL DAYS
Thabane was an up-and-coming politician in the All Basotho
Convention (ABC) party when he divorced his first wife, Yayi,
and married Lipolelo in 1987.
By the time he became prime minister in 2012, he had filed
for another divorce so he could marry Maesaiah.
Maesaiah had gone to court in 2015 to claim the right to be
first lady on the basis of a 2012 so-called customary marriage –
a practice common in a number of African countries that entitles
a man to more than one wife.
She lost the case in 2015, on the grounds that Lipolelo was
still married to Thabane.
"There was this perpetual animosity between them," Lesotho's
Deputy Police Commissioner Paseka Mokete, in charge of the
murder investigation, told Reuters.
Three days before the killing, a Sunday, Lipolelo asked
Sibolla to call Mojapela, a politically connected businessman
who had funded the ruling party's election campaign.
Lipolelo seemed jumpy, was sleeping at friends' houses and
said she feared her life was in danger, Sibolla and a neighbour
recalled.
Mojapela, a wealthy money-lender known to friends as J.P.,
was a friend of Thabane and Maesaiah, Sibolla said, and Lipolelo
hoped he could mediate a truce between them.
Before meeting with Lipolelo, Mojapela says he sought the
blessing of Thabane and Maesaiah. Maesaiah told him "by all
means" mediate, he said, but do not expect the two women to meet
face-to-face.
On Wednesday, Sibolla and Lipolelo set off in Lipolelo's
grey Chevrolet minivan to meet Mojapela at his lavish house,
decked with Italian-style curtains and gilded furniture, in the
South African border town of Ladybrand.
He told them Maesaiah wanted more than anything to be first
lady. Lipolelo gave her assent.
After Lipolelo and Sibolla left, Mojapela headed back to
Maseru, where he says he met Thabane and Maesaiah at the Fu Li
Chinese restaurant at around 6 p.m. and relayed Lipolelo's
message.
"Maesaiah asked me to be more specific about what she
wants," Mojapela said.
Reuters could not confirm the meeting. When a reporter
visited the restaurant, it was under new management.
Thabane's private secretary, Thakalekoala, said he was not
aware of a mediation attempt. Neither was Maesaiah's close
friend, Motlatsi Kompi. The first lady's aide, Letsie, declined
to comment.
Shortly afterwards, Lipolelo was dead.
"I saw the blood running down," said Sibolla, who was shot
twice in the side in the attack. "She was quite light in
complexion, so you could really see it."
Police found 9mm pistol shells at the scene, Mokete, the
deputy commissioner, said. He added that the assassination was
carried out by one of several gangs of traditional musicians,
who are engaged in a deadly turf war.
Three men linked to the gang received calls from the phones
of Thabane and Maesaiah in the days leading up to the killing,
he said. Police issued arrest warrants for them, but they remain
at large.
Finishing up at the Chinese restaurant, Mojapela says he
headed to a friend's house where, at around 8 p.m., his
bodyguard delivered the news of Lipolelo's death.
"I was disgusted. I cried," he said. "There was absolutely
no need for this woman to be assassinated."