Tim Marsland, the businessman who Botswana is trying to extradite from South Africa, broke his silence this week to accuse authorities in Gaborone of trying to use him as a pawn in their vendetta against former president Ian Khama and his family.
Marsland, on bail of R1m and under house arrest in Meyerton as the extradition process unfolds, was arrested at OR Tambo International Airport five years ago when he tried to catch a flight to Germany.
Authorities in Botswana who accuse him of siphoning the equivalent of millions of rand from that country’s government pension fund had asked Interpol to issue a red notice for his arrest.
As a director of Capital Management Botswana (CMB), Marsland was entrusted with managing and investing the assets of the Botswana Public Officers Pension Fund (BPOPF). Among the accusations against him is that he tried to withdraw P71m of the pension fund’s money from FNB Botswana.
Authorities in Botswana say that CMB and Manor Squad Services (MSS), which Marsland ran with his business partner Rapula Okaile, stole P500m (about R675m) from the pension fund.
But Marsland, who has dual South African-British nationality, told the Sunday Times he was the victim of an elaborate scheme to loot his companies.
Someone will be coming to meet you to determine credibility of the whole thing bro, and should it be credible I will go for the Khamas and set you free. That’s the deal
— Senior official of Botswana’s spy agency
Branded a “fugitive from justice” by Botswana, he said his arrest had been engineered by a senior official of Botswana’s spy agency, the Directorate of Intelligence & Security (DIS), who wanted him to dish up dirt against members of the Khama family.
Seretse Khama served as president of Botswana from independence in 1966 until his death in 1980, and his son Ian held the office from 2008 to 2018. Tensions have run high since Khama jnr was defeated in elections in 2019 by his former deputy president, Mokgweetsi Masisi.
Khama, who is living in exile in the UK, has also been labelled a “fugitive from justice”.
Marsland showed the Sunday Times a series of WhatsApp messages between himself and the DIS agent stretching from before his arrest to as recently as last year. In one the agent says: “Someone will be coming to meet you to determine credibility of the whole thing bro, and should it be credible I will go for the Khamas and set you free. That’s the deal.”
Marsland said the DIS was trying to frame Khama for the alleged theft of R100bn from the central bank.
“They [DIS] made up a story that I am somehow connected to Khama, who they said had stolen P100bn from the Bank of Botswana’s reserves.
“But Botswana didn’t even have that amount in reserves, and besides that, all central banks report to the IMF every month so if money was missing the IMF would have seen it. If Khama was stealing from the central bank the IMF would have picked it and there would have been hell,” said Marsland.
He produced evidence that he said showed the DIS agent had engineered his arrest at OR Tambo airport by luring him into trying to fly to Germany.
Botswana also accuses Marsland and Okaile of bribing Carter Morupisi, a former permanent secretary to Khama’s presidency, who, as chair of the BPOPF board, appointed CMB in November 2014 to manage the BPOPF private equity fund.
Prosecutors say the appointment was irregular because the pension fund’s board had been suspended a month earlier pending the election of new trustees.
Marsland and Okaile, using an MSS account, are alleged to have bought Morupisi a Toyota Land Cruiser worth more than R600,000 in 2017. In 2022 Morupisi was convicted of corruption and money laundering by the high court in Gaborone.
Morupisi, who is now now chair of the opposition Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF), was given a two-year suspended sentence and a fined P130,000.
“We had bought that car so we could brand it with our company logo to advertise in Botswana but my partner, who knew Carter well, said Carter wanted to buy the car. He paid for the car, so how can we bribe someone with a car and then he pays it back?” said Marsland.
But justice Chris Gabanagae dismissed this version during Morupisi’s trial.
The Botswana authorities allege Marsland used MSS to launder money from the pension fund through CMB. They allege some of the money was used to buy and develop Manor Estate in Ballito, KwaZulu-Natal.
“Timothy Marsland is a fugitive from justice in Botswana and the Republic of Botswana has applied for his extradition ... to stand trial,” Botswana director of public prosecutions Nomsa Moatswi told the Sunday Times.
"[Marsland] has always challenged and resisted his extradition and the proceedings are still pending. It will be inappropriate at this stage when the matter ... to disclose the nature and type of evidence the state intends to lead at the trial. We are therefore not able to answer your question regarding Manor Squad.”
Marsland lost his extradition appeal in the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2021 and has now embarked on a fresh legal challenge. The department of justice did not respond to questions about the status of the case.
Marsland is involved in other legal battles over money.
He has written to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) alleging that the now suspended deputy master of the high court in Gauteng, Reuben Maphaha, colluded with a liquidator in Botswana, Kopanang Thekiso, to liquidate MSS on false pretences.
Maphaha was suspended in April with 12 other senior managers and officials pending the outcome of SIU investigations into various allegations of financial irregularities and maladministration.
Marsland also accused Thekiso of colluding with Scott MacIntyre, director of LMJ Consulting, who was contracted to MSS and was a former MSS director until 2018 when he resigned.
Marsland said that in 2020 MacIntyre signed an amendment to a 2016 service level agreement between MSS and CMB, the purpose of which “was to cause MSS to bond itself to CMB in the amount of R88m. No value was received by MSS in exchange for this bondage, nor was any value received for the signature of the amendment to the services agreement… MacIntyre was not the director and had no power to do it.”
Macintyre said: “I acted with the knowledge of the liquidators and based on a resolution from Mr Marsland to manage the Manors Project subsequent to my resignation as a director in 2018. The bond served to secure the proceeds of the sales of the development”.
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