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dam-l Lesotho corruption article/LS

This is from the main newspaper in Lesotho. What they don't mention is that
the court has documentation of Swiss bank accounts from the Swiss courts.

Lesotho

                                 Government Baying For Sole's Blood

                                        Mopheme/The Survivor (Maseru)
                                             October 12, 1999
                                             By Khutliso Sekoati

 Maseru - The Government is orchestrating at all costs to have former Chief
Executive Officer of the Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA)
convicted in a lawsuit  in which he is alleged to have earned bribery
amounting to several millions of money received from a dozen of
international construction companies involved in the Lesotho Highlands
Water Project (LHWP).

 According to a source within the government, but which cannot be named for
fear of reprisal, the government is making all efforts to have Masupha
Sole, a somewhat wealthy  51 year-old engineer, convicted by the courts.
The source said the government of Prime Minister Pakalitha Mosisili is
'trying to mount pressure on the crown" to continue charging Sole for the
alleged bribery. He has already briefly appeared in the Maseru Magistrate
Court in remand.

   This bewildered reliable source said the government is hotly baying for
Sole's head despite the fact that investigations in this criminal charge
have not been completed.

 "There is no docket in this matter and the police have not made any
investigations. It appears that the only information being used is that
which came into surface during Sole's  civil trial in which he is the
defendant," the source said.

  A judgement in a case in which Sole is asked to pay back millions of
money illegally gained during his tenure as the LHDA Chief Executive is
still pending in the Court of Justice Mathealira Ramodibeli. Hopefully this
verdict will be handed down before December.

 During the proceedings, volumes of documents were presented to the court
as evidence against the accused who was suspended from the LHDA in 1996 and
was later shown the  door. The case took years to complete.

 In this criminal matter, Sole is alleged to have earned a bribery but it
is said that at present there is no sufficient evidence that has been
gathered to have him put behind the bars.

    The source said: "The prosecution cannot be told what to do and what
not in terms of carrying out its lawful duties. It (prosecution) or crown
must carry out its duties independently of any influence from the
government. This shows how these people think."

 The fact that there is no docket opened against Sole, the Police Relations
Officer Trooper Moroke Moroke told the newspaper yesterday that there is no
docket on this matter. He said the Director of Public Prosecutions Sipho
Mdhluli has made investigations, adding that in this particular case the
police are not involved. In this particular case, Moroke noted,
investigations are made by the office of the Public Prosecutions and not
the police.

 Sole has recently been remanded in the Magistrate Court. He joined this
multi-billion project since its inception in 1986 after a water accord was
signed during the military rule between the Lesotho Government and the
apartheid South African Government, ending a long time debacle in which the
Basotho National Party (BNP) government rejected any moves by the SA to
enter into a water deal.

  Last week the Press Officer at the Cabinet Office could not be reached
because he was said to be in Principal Secretaries meeting. The government
sinister behaviour to have Sole's head on the court's butcher knife has
shocked some people who have been critical of the government's attempts to
grab the independence of the judiciary.



  Copyright (c) 1999 Mopheme/The Survivor. Distributed via Africa News
Online (www.africanews.org). For information about the content or for
permission to redistribute,  publish or use for broadcast, contact the
publisher.

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      Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
        and Editor, World Rivers Review
           International Rivers Network
              1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
                  Tel. (510) 848 1155   Fax (510) 848 1008
                        http://www.irn.org
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