The Murder of a First Lady

The murder investigation from the mountain kingdom of Lesotho

You’ve heard of kings and queens murdered and people’s bloodlust for the crown in stories of fiction, but what if it happened in real life? What if a case were to occur in today’s time? Well, apparently it has, and it has happened in a remote kingdom. That kingdom is on the tiny mountain of Lesotho. 

Maesaiah Thabane is currently the first lady of Lesotho. She has been charged with the murder of Lesotho’s previous first lady, Lipolelo Thabane, as of last Tuesday. She was also charged with the attempted murder of another woman. She is in police custody as of now.

The country of Lesotho has less than Two Million people. South Africa surrounds it. Prime Minister Thomas Thabane was forced to promise his resignation and expose the bad politics that have poisoned Lesotho for far too long because of this scandal.

The previous first lady was gunned down by unknown assailants outside of her house in June 2017. Lipolelo had been separated from Thomas Thabane for a long time, but they had never divorced. Lipolelo had been killed two days prior to her estranged husband’s inauguration for his second term as Prime Minister.

Thomas Thabane was in a relationship with Maesaiah at the time of his wifes death and with Lipopelo out of the way, Maesaiah could be the true first lady. Just shy of three months later, the couple were married and Maesaiah became the true first lady she always desired to be. 

Thomas Thebane is thirty-two years older than Maesaiah, and because of this, she has brought some youthful presence to the Prime Ministers’ responsibilities. Their people have been impressed with Maesaiah because of this. However, Maesaiah has been in more than her fair shares of scandals as the first lady. She fought with a man that she had a car wreck with when visiting him at the hospital. She also had a man steal from her charitable trust and then that man escaped from prison never to be seen again. 

It was likely that the murder allegations against Maesaiah were never going to be revealed until the Prime Minister made a disastrous mistake. Lesotho’s Police Chief, Holomo Molibeli, was the lead investigator on the death of the Prime Minister’s former wife. For some reason, the Prime Minister decided to force Holomo Molibeli to resign. Molibeli, deciding he wasn’t going without a fight, went to court and revealed a secret exposing letter that he wrote to the Prime Minister. The letter describes how the Prime Minister’s phone was used to call a person at the crime scene at the time of the assassination. 

After this big reveal, everything went downhill for the Prime Minister and his wife. The Prime Minister has not yet been charged with anything in the case. On January 10th, the police issued an arrest warrant for Maesaiah but she had already fled the country around that point. She arrived back in the country last Tuesday after hiding in South Africa and turned herself in to the police. She hasn’t pleaded to the charges against her yet and she has been granted bail. Eight other suspects will be charged over their links to the case.

It is genuinely shocking how power and lust for it and a better life can turn people into monsters. This whole story sounds like a play Shakespeare would have written. Who knows what this will do for the kingdom. It has brought about interest and fame but for all of the wrong reasons. I’m sure the Lesotho people are outraged and confused. Let’s all hope that better times will soon fall upon the Lesothonians and that we will quickly know who murdered the former first lady.

Here are the resources I used for research on this case: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/12/africa/lesotho-pm-wife-murder-probe-intl/index.html https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-51105278 https://lescij.org/2020/01/10/breaking-lesotho-first-lady-resists-arrest/