Lesotho’s first lady has been charged with murder in connection with the 2017 killing of prime minister Thomas Thabane’s former wife, Lipolelo Thabane.
Maesiah Thabane, who fled the country on January 10 after being summoned as part of an investigation, returned on Tuesday afternoon and turned herself in for questioning over the brutal killing. Police said she had been hiding in South Africa.
The 42-year-old was remanded in custody tonight and charged with murder alongside eight others who are in Lesotho and South Africa, police confirmed.
Deputy police commissioner Paseka Mokete said that there was a ‘strong case’ against the first lady and that investigations had been ‘satisfactorily completed’.
Prime Minister Thomas Thabane and his estranged wife were involved in bitter divorce proceedings when she was gunned down outside her home in June 2017, two days before the inauguration of her husband, who later remarried two months after the murder.
Earlier this month, it was revealed that call records showed that someone at the murder scene had called Thabane’s mobile phone on the day of the crime.
Thomas, 80, who offered to resign on the grounds of old age has also been questioned over the killing.
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