GABORONE, Botswana — Lesedi Molapisi, a Botswana citizen who spent more than four years in detention in Bangladesh after receiving a death sentence for drug smuggling, has been released following sustained diplomatic efforts by the Botswana government.
Botswana’s Minister for International Relations, Dr. Phenyo Butale, confirmed that Molapisi had been freed and was expected to return home Wednesday, Sept. 2. He said her release followed coordinated efforts involving the government, diplomatic missions, legal representatives and human rights organizations.
Molapisi was arrested Jan. 23, 2022, at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka after Bangladeshi authorities found narcotics in her possession. Reports said she had traveled from South Africa through Doha carrying more than 3 kilograms of heroin. She was convicted of drug smuggling and sentenced to death on May 27, 2024.
Her case drew widespread attention in Botswana because of the possibility that a citizen could be executed abroad. Her lawyers appealed the sentence in June 2024, while Botswana’s government pledged support for the legal process. President Duma Gideon Boko later personally appealed for executive clemency and commutation of the sentence.
Butale said he also engaged with Bangladesh’s former interim Prime Minister Muhammad Yunus and Foreign Affairs Minister Khalilur Rahman. Botswana’s diplomatic missions in South Africa and India participated in the discussions. The government also worked with organizations including Ditshwanelo, the Botswana Centre for Human Rights, to help ensure Molapisi received legal representation.
The case was previously affected by misinformation. In March 2025, social media posts falsely claimed Molapisi had already been executed. Fact-checkers rejected those reports, while Botswana officials said legal proceedings were still underway. Her father, Goitsemodimo Molapisi, had earlier said the family had been unable to speak with her since her arrest.
Botswana’s government thanked Bangladesh for granting clemency and described the outcome as evidence of strong relations between the two countries. Butale also urged the public to give Molapisi and her family privacy and avoid speculation, shame and rumors surrounding the case.
Molapisi’s release comes amid a continuing international debate over capital punishment. Bangladesh retains the death penalty, and Amnesty International recorded at least 185 new death sentences there in 2025. More than 2,000 people were known to be under sentence of death at the end of 2024.
Capital punishment has a long history in South Asia, where some governments continue to authorize death sentences for offenses including murder and certain drug crimes. Bangladesh has maintained particularly strict penalties for drug trafficking, reflecting a wider regional approach emphasizing severe punishment.
Globally, however, the trend has increasingly moved toward abolition. Amnesty International says 145 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice by the end of 2025, although at least 2,707 executions were recorded worldwide that year. The organization said at least 1,257 executions in five countries were for drug-related offenses and has argued that such executions violate international law.
For Botswana, the case demonstrates the role diplomacy can play when citizens face severe criminal punishment overseas. Governments cannot override another country’s courts, but they can seek consular access, legal assistance, appeals and clemency. Botswana’s intervention began under former President Mokgweetsi Masisi, who pledged in 2024 that the government would do everything permitted by law to try to save Molapisi’s life.
More than four years after her arrest, that effort has ended with her release rather than execution. Molapisi’s return closes a high-profile case that brought together criminal justice, diplomacy, human rights and the continuing global debate over the death penalty.
