FROM DEATH ROW TO FREEDOM: LESEDI MOLAPISI RELEASED FROM BANGLADESH PRISON

Lesedi Molapisi

By The Great GoneX

After more than four years of uncertainty, anguish and international attention, Botswana’s Lesedi Molapisi is finally free.

Molapisi, the Motswana woman who was sentenced to death in Bangladesh after being convicted of a drug-smuggling offence, has been released from the Bangladeshi prison where she had been held since her arrest in 2022.

The development was confirmed on Tuesday, 1 September 2026, by the Government of Botswana through the Office of the President. Her release brings an extraordinary chapter in her life to a close — one that had at one point appeared to be heading towards the ultimate punishment.

Arrested at Dhaka airport

Molapisi was arrested at Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on 23 January 2022 after Bangladeshi authorities found her in possession of narcotics.

According to Botswana government records, she was found with approximately 3.145 kilograms of heroin. Bangladesh has historically imposed extremely severe penalties for major drug offences, including the death penalty.

Her case subsequently moved through the Bangladeshi justice system, culminating in her being sentenced to death on 27 May 2024.

For her family, the sentence transformed an already frightening ordeal into a nightmare of uncertainty.

The rumours that she had been executed

Molapisi's case became even more distressing when reports began circulating that she had already been executed.

Those reports were strongly rejected by her family.

In March 2025, her father, Goitsemodimo Molapisi, publicly insisted that his daughter was still alive and remained imprisoned in Bangladesh. He appealed to the public to stop spreading what he described as false reports of her execution.

He said the family remained hopeful that she would eventually be released.

The case had already attracted considerable attention in Botswana, particularly because Molapisi was facing execution in a foreign country.

Botswana refuses to give up

Throughout the ordeal, the Botswana government maintained contact with Bangladeshi authorities and sought to assist its citizen.

Earlier government statements indicated that Botswana's diplomatic representatives had been maintaining contact with Molapisi and monitoring her welfare while she remained detained.

Following the death sentence, then-President Mokgweetsi Masisi expressed his concern and said Botswana would do everything within the law to try to save Molapisi's life.

Under President Duma Gideon Boko, the diplomatic effort continued. According to the latest government announcement, President Boko personally appealed for executive clemency and for Molapisi's death sentence to be commuted.

That intervention has now been followed by the news her family and supporters had desperately been waiting for.

Lesedi Molapisi is free.

A second chance at life

Her release is more than the end of a prison sentence. It marks the conclusion of a saga that subjected a young Botswana woman and her family to years of fear, uncertainty and painful speculation.

From the moment she was arrested in Dhaka in January 2022, Molapisi's future was uncertain. By May 2024, when the death sentence was handed down, the stakes could hardly have been higher.

At one point, the world was even forced to confront false reports that she had already lost her life.

Today, however, the headline is different.

She survived. She has been released. And she has another opportunity to rebuild her life.

A story of hope amid tragedy

Molapisi's case also highlights the dangers faced by people who become entangled in international drug-trafficking cases, where laws, penalties and judicial systems can differ dramatically from those in their home countries.

It is also a reminder of the enormous emotional burden carried by families when a loved one is imprisoned thousands of kilometres away.

For the Molapisi family, the long wait has finally produced the news they had prayed for.

After years behind bars and the shadow of a death sentence, Lesedi Molapisi has walked out of a Bangladeshi prison.

From a death sentence to freedom — her story has taken a turn that many once feared might never come.

And tonight, Botswana has one more reason to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Welcome home, Lesedi.