The Botswanan High Court sentenced 49-year old Mariette...

The Botswanan High Court sentenced 49-year old Mariette Bosch, a South African woman, to death. The court found Bosch guilty of the murder of Maria Wolmarans, her friend and the former wife of the man she subsequently married. After a 30-minute ruling, Justice Isaac Aboagy asked Bosch if she had anything to say before being sentenced. She replied: "I am not guilty, you are My Lord, sentencing a woman for something she did not do." The judge then adjourned the court for five minutes and returned to sentence Bosch. In the courtroom, Justice Isaac Aboagy told Bosch: "You will be returned to prison and hanged by the neck until you are dead. Your body will be buried in such a place as the State President may determine. May the Lord have mercy on your soul." Bosch's attorney Edward Fashole-Luke II filed a notice of appeal with the Court of Appeal immediately after she was convicted. In his grounds of appeal, he mentioned that the "verdict was unreasonable and cannot be supported having regard to evidence." Bosch was being held in solitary confinement in Gaborone Central Prison whilst an appeal procedure that has in the past taken from three to 27 months is exhausted. If the appeal is unsuccessful, Mariette could apply for clemency from the President. In Botswana, the death penalty is carried out by hanging.