The life of suspected drug mule, Lesedi Molapisi hangs in the balance as she faces execution in Bangladesh for alleged drug smuggling. Molapisi was arrested on 23 January 2022 at Hazrat Shahjalala International Airport with over 3kg of heroin in her possession. She was set to be executed on Friday and earlier this week rumours flew thick and fast that she had already been killed but the Bangladesh government came out to refute these claims as did her father, Shakwane Molapisi, a former police chief. Molapisi told the media that he has been communicating with his daughter via an intermediary contracted by an African association in Bangladesh and the trial has not yet started.

“The last communication I had with her through those notes was last week. She appeared in court on November 14 for mention not trial,” he is quoted as saying.

He also managed to retrieve a letter from his daughter’s luggage in Botswana, written from a Pretoria based tour business to the Bangladashi government requesting a business visa for Lesedi, so that she could buy ready-made garment products in Bangladesh.This suggests that she might have been lured into this because they promised that they would assist her to go and buy readymade garments in Bangladesh so that she could resell here in Botswana.

While Lesedi languishes in the cold and dingy jail cell, her purported Nigerian ex-boyfriend recently got married to another woman from his home country in Johannesburg, South Africa.

He has apparently never bothered to reach out to Lesedi or follow up with the case. When the case first broke out he was implicated as a suspect also but the accusations soon fizzled out into thin air. In the last video that she posted on her Facebook wall, the 30-year-old Lesedi who was unemployed but had a taste for the finer things in life as evidenced by her posts of classy outings, is captured happily singing a popular house song but her eyes are dark and conceal a suspicious fear and sadness.

Ditshwanelo, the Botswana Centre for Human Rights released a statement raising concern about the impending execution which occurs without a trial. In Bangladesh, a retentionist state, drug trafficking is a capital offence and carries the death penalty. There have also been reports of torture by the police to obtain forced confessions which are then used by the courts, to impose the death penalty.

Once sentenced to death, many of the accused are kept in solitary confinement for several years, while awaiting their execution.

They made an impassioned plea to Government to take the necessary steps to ensure that Molapisi is not executed. “We remain opposed to the use of the death penalty. This is because it is inhumane, it is not a deterrent and once implemented, it cannot be reversed. Unfair judicial processes, poor legal representation and police torture, prevent the accused from receiving a fair trial.”