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Mary Mubaiwa was reportedly seriously ill with an unknown ailment and was briefly taken to a Harare magistrates court, where her legal team argued that she was not well enough to stand trial for allegedly assaulting a domestic worker.
Flag of Zimbabwe. Image: Thomas Holder / EWN
HARARE – The estranged wife of the Zimbabwean vice president was brought to court on a stretcher on Monday to help support her lawyers’ statement that she is not well enough to stand trial.
Mary Mubaiwa’s husband, Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, is a retired military general who planned the coup that brought the late Robert Mugabe’s government to a dramatic end in November 2017.
Mubaiwa was reportedly seriously ill with an unknown ailment and was briefly taken to a Harare magistrates court, where her legal team argued that she was not well enough to stand trial for allegedly assaulting a domestic worker.
“We requested that we be given until January 28, 2021 to give him time to recover,” said Beatrice Mtetwa, a leading human rights lawyer in the southern African country.
Mubaiwa, 39, whose arms were injured and very swollen, could barely raise his head, according to an AFP journalist in court.
After being transferred to a wheelchair, the former model sat quietly, hooked up to intravenous drippers and beeping monitors.
He didn’t look up once during the 20-minute hearing and the gallery was tense.
Mubaiwa has had a series of previous brushes with the law.
In December, she was accused of trying to kill Chiwenga while he was being treated at a South African hospital.
He filed for divorce at the end of that month, but the separation is not yet final.
Mubaiwa has also been charged with improperly converting Zimbabwe dollars into foreign currency, as well as money laundering and fraud.
As her problems mounted, Mubaiwa was declared mentally incapacitated in June to have custody of the couple’s three minor children.
Mubaiwa, who denies all the charges, was also expelled from her marital home after a court ruled that she cannot live under the same roof with her estranged husband.
She claims the charges were fabricated and that 64-year-old Chiwenga filed the attempted murder charges in an attempt to force her to participate in the divorce proceedings.
The court of first instance granted Mtetwa’s request and referred the assault case to January 28.
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