Botswana former President Ian Khama has filed an application at the High Court in the country’s capital, Gaborone, asking it to set aside an arrest warrant issued by a magistrate court last week, Reuters news agency reports.
The judge issued orders that Mr Khama, who left office in 2018, should be arrested on sight for failure to appear for trial earlier last year.
“The warrant of arrest threatens my right to liberty in circumstances where I have committed no crime…should this warrant of arrest not be stayed or set aside…I would suffer irreparable harm which cannot be compensated for in any form,” Mr Khama said in the filing on Thursday, Reuters reports.
He is facing 14 charges including allegations of money laundering and handling stolen property, but the arrest warrant issued is related to a charge of possession of five illegal firearms.
The 69-year-old denied the charges and says they are part of a political conspiracy after he fell out with his successor President Mokgweetsi Masisi.
Mr Khama left Botswana last year and has been residing in neighbouring South Africa.
He told the BBC’s Focus on Africa programme in April last year that the charges were “fabricated” and that he suspected people in Mr Masisi’s government intended “to do me harm”.
“He wants to eliminate me before the 2024 elections because he views me as his biggest stumbling block to his re-election,” Mr Khama said of his successor.
The government called his allegations of a planned assassination “outrageous”.
“The narrative that the former president and his family members are being persecuted is devoid of any truth,” government spokesperson John-Thomas Dipowe said at the time.
