Marry Mubaiwa faces more charges
MARRY MUBAIWA, the estranged wife of Vice President Constantino Chiwenga, who is already facing attempted murder, fraud and currency externalisation charges, may face more charges.
She is being investigated for swindling State aides of their daily allowances while in foreign lands and grabbing vehicles awarded to Miss Zimbabwe pageant winners, the court heard yesterday.
This emerged while she was remanded in custody on charges of attempting to murder VP Chiwenga, illegally externalising US$1 033 000, laundering US$990 000 and fraudulently seeking to upgrade her customary union to a civil marriage without her husband’s consent.
The attempted murder charge arises from when she accompanied her husband who had been airlifted to South Africa in July for urgent medical attention.
Mubaiwa allegedly refused to let him be admitted to hospital for 24 hours until security personnel insisted.
She then visited her husband in hospital, dismissed his security staff, and when alone with him allegedly removed the intravenous giving set and the central venous catheter.
The remand court was told that she was also being investigated on charges of taking away the daily allowances of her aides on foreign trips, of how vehicles won by models in the Miss Zimbabwe pageant were registered in her name, and how she handled funds in Musha Mukadzi Zimbabwe Armed Forces Foundation (MZAFF).
Mubaiwa was not asked to plead to the four charges when she appeared before Harare regional magistrate Mr Chrispen Mberewere, who remanded her in custody to December 30.
On the attempted murder case, Mr Mberewere advised Mubaiwa to apply for bail at the High Court, which has jurisdiction over such serious offences.
With regards to fraud, externalisation of funds and money laundering charges, Mr Mberewere denied Mubaiwa bail on the basis that she was a flight risk.
Opposing bail in respect of the three charges, prosecutor Mr Michael Reza said Mubaiwa was under investigation on fresh charges over Musha Mukadzi funds, the daily allowances of her security aides and the Miss Zimbabwe cars.
MZAFF is a non-profit organisation running programmes that help families of the armed
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◆ From Page 1 forces of Zimbabwe, wives and widows and children of either serving or retired soldiers, as well as war veterans.
Mubaiwa was the patron and chairperson of the Miss Zimbabwe Trust until her resignation in February last year.
Legal expert, Ms Jacqueline Sande said Mubaiwa had to approach the High Court for freedom in respect of the four cases that were heard in court yesterday.
“In respect of the attempted murder case, if the State is opposed to bail, the magistrate cannot entertain the application,” she said.
“The accused person is then supposed to approach the High Court with a bail application.
“In respect of the money laundering, externalisation and fraud, she can file a bail appeal at the High Court. The High Court can overrule the magistrate.”
Another lawyer who spoke under anonymity said the attempted murder case can legally be tried in Zimbabwe, although the offence was allegedly committed in South Africa.
“If the idea to kill started here in Zimbabwe before the complainant was removed from Zimbabwe to South Africa, our courts will have jurisdiction to hear the case,” said the lawyer.
“Again, the law says if the offence has an effect on Zimbabwe, it can be tried by the local courts.”
The Criminal Law Codification and Reform Act reads:
“A person may be tried, convicted and punished for a crime, whether in terms of this Code or any other enactment, where the crime or an essential element of the crime was: (a) committed wholly inside Zimbabwe; or (b) committed partly outside Zimbabwe, if the conduct that completed the crime took place inside Zimbabwe; or
( c) committed wholly or partly outside Zimbabwe, if the crime:
( i) is a crime against public security in Zimbabwe or against the safety of the State of Zimbabwe; or
(ii) is a crime which:
A. has produced a harmful effect in Zimbabwe; or
B. was intended to produce a harmful effect in Zimbabwe; or
C. was committed with the realisation that there was a real risk or possibility that it might produce a harmful effect in Zimbabwe.”
The four charges that were yesterday read out in court, attract lengthy maximum sentences.
If Mubaiwa is convicted of attempted murder, the maximum penalty provided for in the Act is life imprisonment depending on the circumstances.
Fraud attracts a maximum penalty of 35 years in jail, while one can be jailed up to 25 years for money laundering.
Mubaiwa’s father Keni, family members and friends attended the high-profile court case at the Harare Magistrates’ Courts yesterday.
Journalists flocked to the courtroom and some court orderlies, who were not conversant with the operation of the media, clashed with journalists barring them from taking down notes during proceedings.
INFANTS delivered at home during a month long withdrawal of labour by municipal nurses are being followed up to monitor their conditions and to provide necessary interventions where necessary.
This development follows six recorded perinatal deaths and two maternal deaths in November.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) defines perinatal mortality as the “number of stillbirths and deaths in the first week of life and maternal deaths as “the death of a woman while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and site of the pregnancy, from any cause related to or aggravated by the pregnancy or its management.
Hundreds of women are reported to have given birth at home during the period when only five of the 12 polyclinics in Harare were operational.
Harare City Council runs 40 satellite clinics and health centres, all of which were forced to close because of the strike which started on November 4.
Central hospitals, which normally attend to referral cases from the local authorities and manned largely by doctors, were also taking in limited numbers of mothers because of the doctors’ strike which began in September, way before nurses downed tools.
This forced mothers who could not afford to deliver at private facilities to turn to traditional birth attendants amid warnings from the Zimbabwe Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology on potential short and long term side effects of home deliveries.
Women who deliver at home risk suffering from sequelae of obstructed labour such as urinary incontinence, leaking of urine from fistulae, and chronic pain while their babies may develop complications such as anaemia and brain damage.
The gynaecology society said to prevent these long term side effects, deliveries were supposed to take place in a health facility as this would allow monitoring of possible complications, including high blood pressure, diabetes and infections among others.
It said after delivery, measures should be taken to prevent heavy bleeding with maternal injuries repaired quickly, safely and correctly to prevent bleeding infection and failure to control passage of urine or faeces.
Babies should also get prophylaxis against bleeding (Vitamin K) and if necessary prophylaxis against HIV and eye infections.
City Health Director Dr Prosper Chonzi said these figures could actually be under-reported since no one was taking statistics hence the need to work with traditional birth attendants in following up on all those who delivered at home.
“The major issues that come with such withdrawal of labour has to do with maternity and child health services hence we still have to quantify the impact of the one month of withdrawal of labour in terms of maternal and child deaths and associated complications.
“We know women were going to deliver somewhere, we might not know where exactly, but we know that the private institutions are very expensive. Of course some could have been going to mission hospitals, but others were delivering at home,” said Dr Chonzi.
“Just last week we had two maternal deaths in the community. So far, we only know of these two and we do not know how many others died because we were not providing the services so we are still working on the figures.”
He said in the follow up process, the municipality was also working on providing services that could have been missed by those who delivered at home.
These services included immunisation against tuberculosis, known as BCG and administration of nevirapine for babies born to HIV positive mothers.
Head of epidemiology and disease control in the City Health Department Dr Kudzai Masunda said so far, the local authority had recorded six perinatal deaths.
Dr Masunda said owing to withdrawal of labour by doctors at central hospitals, the city also had to deal with an increased number of patients compared to what it usually attended to when systems were functioning normally.
He said this resulted in a decline in the number of transfers to central hospitals in the month of October.
“There was a 110 percent increase in the number of babies born before arrival (BBAs) for September 2019 in comparison with September 2018. BBAs are babies born without skilled birth attendants. This is as a result of the industrial action at both central hospitals and city health facilities,” said Dr Masunda.
Municipal nurses, however, returned to work starting last week resulting in reopening of all city council facilities and resumption of normal services including evening clinics.