Model trashes Grace’s version
‘PATHETIC: SHE JUST WANTS TO GET OUT OF TROUBLE’ AfriForum tries to get Mugabe’s diplomatic immunity after ‘assault’ set aside.
Gabriella Engels, the South African model allegedly assaulted at a Sandton hotel by Zimbabwe’s first lady, Grace Mugabe, and civil rights group AfriForum have described Mugabe’s claim that Engels had assaulted her as nonsense.
Engels, assisted by AfriForum, applied to the High Court in Pretoria yesterday for an order allowing them to institute proceedings against Mugabe to have the diplomatic immunity granted to her on August 19 set aside.
AfriForum’s Kallie Kriel said today’s urgent application was the first step in their bid to have Mugabe’s diplomatic immunity set aside with the aim of eventually seeing her stand trial on charges of assault with the intent to do grievous bodily harm and to proceed with civil action.
Engels, who attended the hearing with her mother Debbie, did not want to comment, but her mother said Mugabe’s purported claim Engels had attacked her was ridiculous. “We know it’s not the truth. It’s a pathetic attempt to get herself out of trouble … we don’t take it to heart,” she said.
Engels’ attorney, Willie Spies, said they had video evidence to back up the truth of her version.
Debbie Engels said she wanted Mugabe to stand in front of a court and explain why she had assaulted her daughter. She said her daughter was healing after the assault, but was struggling to get her life and career back on track.
“Her life will never be the same, because she has to be careful where she’s going,” she said.
Engels laid an assault charge against Mugabe after she was allegedly attacked with an extension cord in a Sandton hotel room.
Mugabe was allowed to leave the country after International Relations Minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane granted her diplomatic immunity, but AfriForum maintained she was here on private business and to grant her immunity was irrational.
Etienne Labuschagne, for Engels, argued they were seeking to commence proceedings against Mugabe by serving papers on her at the office of the Presidency in Harare, but Simba Chitando, for the Zimbabwean embassy, said she had made no effort to trace Mugabe and it was not for the embassy to assist her. –