Samotse and Another v Minister of Home Affairs and Others (60113/2014) [2014] ZAGPPHC 1001

6th January 2015

Samotse and Another v Minister of Home Affairs and Others (60113/2014) [2014] ZAGPPHC 1001

1. The parties are the same as identified in the court’s judgment of the 23rd September 2014 and they are referred to as before.

2. The first applicant is a Botswana citizen and is alleged to have murdered his girlfriend in that country in 2010. He has been charged with murder in that country and may, if tried and convicted, face the death penalty because Botswana is a retentionist state.

3.The first applicant escaped to South Africa, was apprehended as an illegal alien. He escaped again and, having been arrested and convicted of escaping, incarcerated in the Polokwane correctional institution until the 13th August 2014. On that date he was extradited to Botswana by officials of the Department of Home Affairs (“DHA”), represented in these proceedings by its political head, the first respondent.

4. The first applicant’s surrender occurred in spite of an order by the Minister of Justice and Correctional Services in terms of section 11(b) of the Extradition Act 67 of 1962 that the former should not be extradited in view of the fact that Botswana refused to give an undertaking that the first applicant would not be executed should he be convicted of the charge against him. At the same time, it transgressed an interdict issued by this court that ordered the officials of the first respondent concerned to refrain from executing the extradition warrant that had been issued and signed by Ms Dlamini, a senior official of the DHA.