Lesotho's Prime Minister Thomas Thabane bowed to pressure to resign on Tuesday, three months after police named him and his current wife as suspects in the murder of his former wife in a case that has transfixed the southern African nation.
Thabane's departure marks the end of one of Lesotho's longest political careers, one marked by exile, intrigue, tensions with the military and a political crisis that deepened when police named him as a murder suspect in February.
"The time to retire from the great theater of action, take leave from public life and office has finally arrived," the 80-year-old Thabane told citizens in a speech on Lesotho TV.
His own All Basotho Convention (ABC) party, opposition figures and South African mediators had all been pressing Thabane to resign over the murder case.
Gunmen shot dead his previous wife, Lipolelo, on June 14, 2017, two days before he took office.