Kalafatis family lawyer Dick Bayford yesterday (Monday) served the commissioner of police with a letter demanding answers and updates on the recent shooting of Costa Kalafatis by people believed to be members of the security agent and or Botswana Police Service.
Costa, whose brother and father died in almost similar fashion in 2009 and 2013 respectively, was on December 18, 2013, near a residential location commonly referred to as Partial, unlawfully and wrongfully shot by certain members of the Botswana Police Service or members of a kindred Botswana Security Agency.
He sustained serious injuries and was hospitalised at Princess Marina in Gaborone for a period of five days.
In his letter, Bayford asked the commissioner to confirm the reports that his client was shot by the police.
The police spokesperson Senior Superintendent Dipheko Motube went on record in the media after the shooting confirming that members of BPS shot a certain motorist in the vicinity of the said locality on the same night Kalafatis was shot.
“If my client was in fact shot by members of the BPS, provide the particulars of your members who shot him and advise if the said officer or officers are in custody and if not, why?” he asked.
He further asked the Commissioner to “advise as to whether the said officers have been brought before any Court of Law and if not, whether there are plans to institute criminal proceedings against them.”
Bayford, who alongside Duma Boko, represented the Kalafatis family after the murder of John, also told the Commissioner that his client request that his ballistic expert be permitted access to all exhibits seized by the police to date and to conduct on his behalf an independent examination. “We require the said interventions to be carried out on my client’s behalf for purposes of advising himself on the possibility of instituting civil proceedings for damages arising from the said incident and or to consider instituting a private prosecution in the event the State does not intend to prosecute his assailants.”
The Kalafatis family has been beset by a series of tragic deaths in the recent past. John was murdered by the Military Intelligence in 2009 for undisclosed reasons. After public outcry and pressure from the family lawyers, the state prosecuted his killers who were convicted by the High Court but pardoned by the President. In 2012, John’s father was assaulted by unknown assailants and succumbed to his injuries the following year.