Office romance lands cop in jail

An undisciplined Police Sargent was this week arraigned in court for threatening to kill his special constable girlfriend.

The Voice reported that Sargent Samuel Keamogile (44) of Gaborone West police station stood stoically in the dock on Monday with no display of emotion as the magistrate rejected his bail application and sent him back to jail to await trial.

Keamogile who doubles as a pastor when he is not fighting crime landed on the wrong side of the law on February 4th in a brawl with a woman 17 years his junior.

Details of the charge sheet have indicated that on the 4th of February, the young constable, Gladys Moagaesi informed the boss at the office of her decision to end the affair immediately.

Angry at being jilted, Seargent Keamogile followed his 25 -year -old ex to her parents' house and asked her to open the door for him so they could talk.

When she refused to obey his order, the Sargent uttered the words ‘If you think you are going to be in the house forever, I am going to break that door down and blow your head up with a gun.'

This statement, court papers have said instilled so much fear in the junior officer that she stayed locked up in the house the whole day.

Arguing for the police boss to be kept under lock and key, State Prosecutor, Christina Ramokwena, told Magistrate Godwill Makofi that the two cops could not work at the same station because tempers were still flaring.

Ramokwena also argued that the matter was still fresh, and that the investigation team was still to establish whether the suspect had the gun he alluded to in his threats.

"I understand that the accused has the right to liberty, but it can be limited as he instilled fear in another human being," she said.

She also asked the court to have Keamogile's plea reserved.

When pleading for bail, Keamogile said he had many responsibilities that would suffer if he were to be kept in jail. "I am about to be ordained as a pastor. I live with my late sister's child who is sick and if I'm denied bail the child might die," he said.

Village court Magistrate, Makofi however turned down the bail application because threat to kill was a serious offence punishable by a 10-year -minimum jail term.

Speaking to The Voice outside court the accused cop claimed his charges were ‘a spiritual attack from the devil."

"God works in mysterious ways, maybe he planned that I exercise my pastoral calling in prison where I'll be preaching the gospel to many during my incarceration," Keamogile said.

Moagaesi who was present in court refused to comment on the matter. the case resumes on February 22.