What a disgrace
IT IS NOW clear Grace Mugabe is not safely back in Harare after giving lawyers, prosecutors, the media – and Police Minister Fikile Mbalula – the slip at the Randburg Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday.
She had, according to Mbalula, agreed through her lawyers to hand herself over to police and appear before the court.
Zimbabwe’s first lady would have faced a potential charge of assault with the intent to cause grievous bodily harm after allegedly beating one of her son’s girlfriends with an extension cord at a Johannesburg hotel on Sunday. The only problem is that Mugabe never appeared.
Turns out she has been here all along. She has changed her mind about appearing before our courts and is now claiming diplomatic immunity, according to a Ministry of Police statement last night.
“The suspect remains in South Africa and has not departed the Republic.
We are advised her itinerary includes, among private matters, her attendance and participation at the scheduled Southern African Development Community Heads of States/Governments Summit and bi-lateral diplomatic meetings already under way in Pretoria,” read the statement.
What an absolute disgrace. Mugabe has shown South Africans the middle finger and perverted the course of justice.
No one who enjoys diplomatic immunity should behave like a violent thug. It should be revoked. She ought to be arrested the moment she crawls from her bolthole.
We do not know if that will happen, because the ministry says discussions are continuing with her lawyers.
But what we do know is that our government is developing a habit of allowing despots and dictators special privileges, particularly in the light of its scandalous spurning of an international arrest warrant for Sudanese leader and accused war criminal Omar al-Bashir, instead helping him to leave South Africa in 2015.
What we do know is very clear: in this country there is one set of rules for the ordinary person and another for the elite, and that women, yet again, face the brunt of this.
We also know we will never turn the tide on gender violence when aggressors manage to evade justice with such ease.