MURDER IN HIGH PLACES

The world watches as the drama involving Lesotho’s prime minister and his wife unfolds.

- LAVERN DE VRIES

YOUNG woman marries an African leader nearly twice her age and becomes the apparent power behind the throne. She’s accused of committing a crime so audacious and outrageous it makes headlines around the world.

You’d be forgiven for thinking we’re talking about Grace Mugabe, flamboyant former first lady of Zimbabwe – but the woman in question is Lesotho’s Maesaiah Thabane (42). And she’s at the heart of a gripping murder mystery that has flabbergasted the tiny mountain kingdom and puzzled the globe.

Maesaiah dominated the news when she recently turned herself in to police in South Africa – where she’d fled – after a warrant of arrest had been issued in her home country in connection with the death of her love rival.

She was escorted back across the border to Lesotho’s capital, Maseru, where she’s expected to stand trial eventually.

The first lady, who’s married to Lesotho prime minister Thomas Thabane (80), is accused of ordering a hit on his estranged wife, Lipolelo Thabane.

Lipolelo was shot execution style two days before Thabane took office in 2017. One evening, while returning home with a friend, she was ambushed, shot several times at close range and died on the side of a dirt road in Maseru.

Her friend was shot too but survived, although she’s been left paralysed.

Lipolelo (58) had at that point been locked in a drawn-out divorce from the prime minister, who described it as “a senseless killing” at the time.

Although there was no evidence linking the politician or his younger lover to the crime, in the hallowed halls of Lesotho’s parliament there were whispers that Maesaiah was the mastermind behind the murder.

“In December, speculation turned into allegations,” The Economist reports.