First lady Grace Mugabe gets diplomatic immunity, returns to Zimbabwe after South African assault claim
Gabriella Engels, a 20-year-old model, said Grace Mugabe attacked her on August 13, whipping her with an extension cord that cut her forehead.
Zimbabwe’s first lady Grace Mugabe returned home from South Africa early on Sunday, state media reported, pursued by demands she face prosecution over an alleged assault of a 20-year-old model in an upmarket Johannesburg hotel room.
Police had placed border posts on “red alert” to prevent her from leaving but South Africa’s international relations minister said she had granted diplomatic immunity to the wife of Zimbabwe’s 93-year-old President Robert Mugabe.
“I hereby recognise the immunities and privileges of the First Lady of the Republic of Zimbabwe, Dr Grace Mugabe,” the minister, Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, said in a notice published in South Africa’s Government Gazette on Sunday.
A Reuters source confirmed a Zimbabwean state media report that the president and first lady arrived in Harare aboard an Air Zimbabwe plane in the early hours of Sunday.
Nkoana-Mashabane’s order, signed on Saturday, has gone down badly in online forums in South Africa, where August has been designated Women’s Month to highlight concerns around gender violence and abuse.
The opposition Democratic Alliance said it would call for a parliamentary inquiry into the affair, while advocacy group Afriforum said it would challenge the government’s decision.