In Botswana, an arrest warrant for Ian Khama, the country’s former President, has been issued on suspicion of illegally possessing a firearm.
Although legally indicted in April of last year, the former president has not yet been in court. On December 29, a Botswana court issued a warrant for Khama’s arrest.
According to his attorney, Khama, who currently resides in South Africa, denies the accusation. After having a falling out with his hand-picked successor President Mokgweetsi Masisi, he has been in South Africa for approximately a year.
Khama, 69, who served as president of Botswana from 2008 to 2018, claimed he was being pursued because of his disagreement with Masisi.
“There’s been no crime. I have done nothing wrong,” the former President told newsmen.
He claimed that while general elections in Botswana are approaching in 2024, Masisi is using the warrant as part of a campaign to harass him.
“I have been and I will continue being more and more targeted in this manner because I remain the most constant voice condemning and exposing Masisi for the incompetent failure that he is,” Khama told the Voice of America.
South Africa has not yet been requested by Botswana to extradite Khama.
Khama served as Botswana’s fourth president and was the son of the nation’s first leader, Seretse Khama. He led the Botswana Defense Force as its commander before serving as vice president from 1998 to 2008 and then as president after Festus Mogae’s retirement.
After serving two consecutive five-year terms, he was reelected in the 2009 elections and again in 2014.
In 2019, Khama resigned from the governing Botswana Democratic Party and is now a patron of the breakaway Botswana Patriotic Front.
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