Africa-Press – Lesotho. DEVASTATED and desperate for justice, the family of a businesswoman from Malealea Matelile who was burnt to ashes after she was alleged to be involved in a ritual killing a fortnight ago say they suspect she was murdered by competitors.
“We believe that she was intentionally set on fire, this is because of jealousy from her competitors.
We have been told by some people in the area that the plot to kill her was cooked by her competitors,” Thabang Mphomeli, her brother and the family spokesperson, told thepost.
The woman was burnt together with a local man by an angry mob that accused them of kidnapping a girl to use her for rituals to boost her business. He said the family would continue to fight for justice so that the killers are brought to book.
“We are not going to back off as a family. We do not hide this,” the visibly irate Mphomeli said. He said they are giving the police a chance to accomplish their work.
Police have arrested 11 suspects who are due to appear in court this week in connection to the case. Mphomeli refused to disclose the steps that the family intends to take, although revenge and vengeance were written all over his face.
With a shrieking tone, Mphomeli said they are a family of hard workers who know that success comes with commitment and hard work. He said he is a businessman and so is his other brother.
He said his grandfather was a successful farmer who lived large because of his flock of sheep and herd of cattle. And their father diversified the family’s fortune to venture into other businesses.
He said they have emulated what their father had been doing to grow their fortune, yet their family is labelled and painted as inclined to black magic and the culture of mutilation.
“No one can provide any piece of evidence for all this,” Mphomeli said. Accusations that his sister was involved in rituals are meant to tarnish the family’s image.
Survived by three girls, Matelile had been operating in the area for just over a week, said Mphomeli. He said the deceased shut down her business four years ago because it was not generating profits.
“So she had bounced back with full force to run her supermarket. She had a second shop in Sekiring in the Matelile area. She was a hard worker,” Mphomeli said.
Mphomeli said the man who was burnt together with his sister was coerced to implicate her into a case of a missing child. Mphomeli said when her sister was accosted by the angry community, she asked them to search all over the place but they failed to find anything suspicious.
“My sister even tried to help in the search for the girl,” he said.
He is demanding answers from the perpetrators on why they subjected her sister to mob justice instead of waiting for the relevant authorities to take action.
During the search, they asked about a fridge they allege was used to hide the missing child. The deceased had just fetched a fridge from one of her shops to be repaired in Mafeteng town.
At the time of the incident, the fridge was in Ha-Seeiso ready to be shipped to Mafeteng for repairs. Police spokesperson, Inspector ’Mareabetsoe Mofoka, said the horrific incident happened after a 12-year-old girl from Malealea went missing on Friday night.
She said the deceased were the prime suspects. “Their bodies were burnt to ashes,” she said, adding that one of the deceased is a 43-year-old running a successful supermarket in the area.
She was burnt along with a 44-year-old man who was suspected to have been a mastermind in the kidnapping and “killing” of the girl. She said a 36-year-old woman who is an employee of Malealea Lodge reported her child missing.
Inspector Mofoka said the visibly irate woman informed them that she last saw her child on Friday around 6pm when she went out for some drinks with a relative.
Police said the woman left for drinks, leaving the missing child with another woman who was doing errands at her home. Later, the cleaning woman joined them at a bar for drinks.
Inspector Mofoka said investigations showed that the two women returned home after midnight and continued drinking while sitting in the kitchen. But later they wondered why the child had not woken up despite the noise they were making while drinking.
Police said the women knocked on the bedroom door but there was no response. Surprisingly, the door was tightly locked, forcing them to forcibly open the door.
Everything in the room was scattered all over the place and the child was nowhere to be seen. Frustrated and shocked, they searched for the child without success.
In their search, the police said the women saw an empty beer can just outside the room. They then remembered that the man who was buying them beer was drinking beer of the same label.
Without wasting more time, they hurried to the man’s place demanding the child from him. Police said the man told them that he had struck a deal with a businesswoman to hand over the child in exchange for M30 000.
Inspector Mofoka said the man’s confession infuriated members of the community who then accosted the man together with the businesswoman to interrogate them. Police said the man told them that the woman was going to use the body of the child to mix her muti to attract customers.
Inspector Mofoka said the deceased told them that the child’s body had been taken to Matelile, Ha-Seeiso, about five kilometres from Malealea where it was kept in a fridge.
Inspector Mofoka said the community set the two on fire even before the child could be located. She said the woman was burnt while she was in her supermarket together with her stock.
“She was burnt beyond recognition. Her remains were collected with a spade because they were in ash form,” Inspector Mofoka said.
She said her vehicle was also burnt together with a two-roomed house attached to the supermarket. Inspector Mofoka said her accomplice’s charred body was picked up by the police in front of the supermarket building.
“The people who were supposed to tell us the whereabouts of the child have been killed,” Inspector Mofoka said. To date, the body of child has not been located. “We are still in the dark because we do not have leads now,” the police said.
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