Mahao: 'It was a classic hit'

03 July 2015 - 02:24 By Shaun Smillie

Slain Lesotho General Maaparankoe Mahao's body might be sent to South Africa for an autopsy because the kingdom's government now believes that he was killed in a military operation that went wrong. But Koffi Kouakou, a senior lecturer at Wits University's School of Governance, said Mahao was assassinated in an attempt to erode the support base of the then Lesotho prime minister, Tom Thabane.Said Kouakou: "It was a classic hit: you take out the top guys and Mahao was one of [Thabane's] top guys."He said the intent of such an assassination would be to destabilise the tiny kingdom and thwart the attempts to restore stability made in the past few months by South African Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa.Kouakou said the biggest danger was that the Thabane camp would seek revenge and so force South Africa to intervene in Lesotho militarily.A photograph leaked to The Times indicates that eight bullets hit Mahao on the right side of his body - three struck his arm, three his chest and two his head.Mahao's family have claimed he was ambushed on his farm, near the village of Mokema, on June 25.His nephews were with him but survived the attack.They said that three vehicles boxed in their light truck. Men they believed to be soldiers opened fire on the driver's side of their vehicle with AK47 assault rifles.The assailants dragged the general into one of their cars.Family members said they had been told that Mahao had been wounded on the driver's side of the vehicle in an arm and was able to walk. He was taken to a hospital and died later.Private forensic examiner David Klatzow, who has seen the photograph but stressed that he has not seen a postmortem report, said that the general had been shot by an assailant on his right, which supports the family's account of the shooting.He said: "These wounds are not consistent with a firefight; usually a person turns to face where the shooting is coming from."Yesterday Lesotho Prime Minster Pakalitha Mosisili's spokesman, Motumi Ralejoe, claimed that the general died in a military operation. He said security forces were trying to arrest him because of his alleged involvement in an army mutiny.He said Mahao was shot when he reached for his side-arm, a claim the family denies.Ralejoe said that Zimbabwe and Namibia are sending police investigators to complement local law enforcement resources...

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