B G LEROTHOLI Vs. KING (LORD REID)

JUDGEMENT

(1.) On 15 November 1948, in the High Court of Basutoland the appellants were found guilty of the murder of Meleke Ntai and sentenced to death. The principal evidence against them was the evidence of four accomplices and the main ground of this appeal was that the learned Judge who convicted the appellants misdirected himself in law in considering the evidence of the accomplices. The trial in this case took place before the decision of the Board in Tumahole Bereng and others V/s. The King, 1949 AC 253: (AIR (36) 1949 PC 172). It was admitted that the learned Judge in this case properly applied the law as it was thought to be in Basutoland before that decision, bat it was argued that if the grounds of decision in Tumahole Bereng's case (1949 AC 253 : AIR (36) 1949 PC 172) are applied in this case these convictions cannot stand. Their Lordships must therefore first consider what was decided in Tumahole's case (1949 AC 358 : AIR (36) 1949 PC 173).

(2.) The law in Basutoland with regard to accomplice evidence in enacted in S. 231, Basuto- land Criminal Procedure Proclamation, 1938 : that section was amended by the Basutoland Criminal Procedure and Evidence (Amendment) Proclamation, 1944, and the amended section is as follows : "Any Court which is trying any person on a charge of any offence may convict him of any offence alleged against him in the indictment or summons on the single evidence of any accomplice : Provided that the offence has, by competent evidence, other than the single and unconfirmed evidence of the accomplice, been proved to the satisfaction of such Court to have been actually committed."

(3.) In Tumahole's case, (1949 AC 263 : (AIR (36) 1949 PC 172) as in this case the crime alleged was a ritual murder; in Tumahole's case, (1949 AC 253 : AIR (36) 1949 PC 172) their Lordships first considered whether there was any evidence in addition to the evidence of the accomplices to show that the deceased had been murdered, and they held that there was not. Their Lordships therefore proceeded to a consideration of the legal issues "on the basis that there was no evidence in the case sufficient to confirm the two accomplices in proving, or to prove altunde, that Katse was murdered at all."