A quarrel that unfolded in the shadows of Botswana’s most guarded institution broke into the open in the dying hours of Peter Magosi’s leadership, when an intelligence officer, ordered to hand over his mobile phones, is said to have fled to a police station and begged for cover.
The officer was later placed under around-the-clock police protection, according to people familiar with the episode, a confrontation that allegedly drew in Magosi, the former director general of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security, along with other senior figures from inside the agency.
Police at Broadhurst are said to be examining what happened, and criminal charges against those involved may follow, depending on what investigators conclude.
The trouble, by these accounts, began in the twilight of Magosi’s tenure, shortly before his retirement, when he is said to have called the officer into his office and demanded that he surrender every mobile phone in his possession.
Two senior DIS officers then entered the room, according to the same sources, and took one of the devices. Pressed about a second phone, the officer reportedly answered that he had left it at home.
He was allegedly told to go and retrieve it, shadowed by the two officers. But the errand curdled when the officer peeled away from the road to his house, sending the pair after him in pursuit.
He finally arrived at the Phakalane police satellite station and sought shelter inside. The two DIS officers are said to have trailed him there and tried to drag him back out of the police compound, sharpening an already combustible standoff.
Officers at Phakalane reportedly summoned reinforcements from the Special Support Group, the paramilitary wing of the police, which arrived at the scene. From there, the parties were taken to Broadhurst Police Station, where senior commanders were said to have been called in to broker calm.
Magosi himself is reported to have turned up at the station, pressing for the phone to be surrendered. That attempt, by these accounts, came to nothing.
Unanswered questions
Why the devices were demanded in the first place – and what sent the officer running for police protection – remains obscure. Nor is it clear what, if anything, the phones were thought to hold.
The clash has cast light on what appears to be a souring between Magosi and a man who once worked at his side. The officer, sources say, was posted to the Economic Intelligence Unit during the presidency of former president Mokgweetsi Masisi. He was reportedly pulled from that unit and reassigned in April of this year, a shift that those familiar with the matter describe as the pivot on which his relationship with Magosi turned.
He is also said to have lived for roughly a year in one of Gaborone’s most expensive hotels. Who footed that bill, and why, is not known.
The allegations open a thicket of questions about the officer’s ties to senior intelligence officials and the chain of events that ended in a police intervention. None of the claims, however, have been independently verified, and it is still unclear whether the dispute has hardened into a formal criminal case.
Reached for comment, Broadhurst Police Station’s acting station commander, Assistant Superintendent Benny Phothinyane, said he knew nothing of the matter.
At the moment my station has not yet registered such a case.
