Activists to challenge Mugabe’s immunity

ASouth African civil rights organisation said on Monday it would challenge the government’s decision to grant diplomatic immunity to Zimbabwe first lady Grace Mugabe, who was facing assault charges.

The wife of President Robert Mugabe allegedly attacked a 20-year old model with an electrical extension cord at a hotel in Johannesburg where the couple’s two sons were staying.

The attack left Gabriella Engels with cuts on her forehead and on her head that required stitching and she filed an assault charge against Mugabe.

South Africa’s foreign affairs ministry said on Sunday that it had granted Mugabe immunity after “careful consideration of all the relevant factors”.

Decision ‘not easy’

AfriForum, which helps victims of crime, is preparing an court injunction to set aside the foreign ministry decision.

“We are going to ask the court to say that the decision to grant immunity is unlawful because our legislation says that diplomatic immunity cannot apply in serious crimes, and violence is part of that,” AfriForum’s chief Kallie Kriel said.

Mugabe, who had been sought by police, flew out of South Africa in the early hours of Sunday, hours before the foreign ministry announced that it had granted her immunity. The decision to grant Mugabe immunity “was not an easy one to make,” it said.

AfriForum has vowed to help Engels seek justice and denounced what it said was a regional “culture of impunity”.

Seeking diplomatic immunity was an “afterthought,” said Kriel.