Zimbabwe Miners Federation president Henrietta Rushwaya

(in dotted blouse) was accompanied by detectives from the CID Flora and Fauna as well as her lawyer Tapson Dzvetero (right) as she walked into the Harare Magistrates’ Court for initial remand hearing on gold smuggling charges yesterday.

ZIMBABWE Miners Federation president Henrietta Rushwaya appeared in court yesterday charged with attempting to smuggle gold worth US$333 000 out of the country and was remanded in custody to today for bail ruling.

Through her lawyer Tapson Dzvetero, the former Zimbabwe Football Association chief executive denied the charge when she appeared before magistrate Ngoni Nduna.

Rushwaya was intercepted and arrested at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport on Monday while on her way to Dubai with 6kg of processed gold stashed in her hand luggage.

She was charged with contravening section 182 of the Customs and Excise Act after she failed to produce a gold export licence.

The State consented to bail, but Nduna postponed ruling to today.

Allegations are that on October 26 at around 11am, Rushwaya was at the Robert Gabriel Mugabe International Airport en-route to United Arab Emirates, Dubai.

It is alleged when she arrived at the airport, she went through departure procedures.

The State alleges her passport was stamped and the boarding pass for Air Emirates was issued.

Rushwaya then went to the X-ray screening point using the VIP route and was asked to place her luggage for scanning by an official, who detected a dense colour in the hand luggage.

Detectives were summoned and they discovered 6 095,66 grammes of gold.

They asked Rushwaya to produce an export licence and she failed to do so, leading to her arrest.