GABORONE (Reuters) – President Ian Khama of Botswana said on Tuesday he had ordered the arrest and deportation of U.S. pastor Steven Anderson, who was banned from neighbouring South Africa last week over his anti-gay views. Anderson, of the Faithful Word Baptist Church in Arizona, notoriously welcomed the gunning down in June of 50 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida by saying “there’s 50 less paedophiles in this world”.
Khama told Reuters he had ordered Anderson’s immediate arrest and deportation after the pastor said in an interview with a local radio station in the capital Gabarone on Tuesday morning that gays and lesbians should be killed. “He was picked up at the radio station. I said they should pick him up and show him out of the country,” Khama said in an interview. “We don’t want hate speech in this country. Let him do it in his own country.”