South Africa deports Mugabe’s son for unrelated offences after employee shot at family home | Robert Mugabe
Two months after an employee was shot in the back at the Mugabe family home in a wealthy suburb of Johannesburg, a South African court ordered Robert Mugabe’s youngest son to be fined and deported on two unrelated charges.
Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, 28, and his cousin Tobias Mugabe Matonhodze, 33, were initially charged with attempted murder after the incident on February 19.
Earlier this month Matonhodze pleaded guilty to attempted murder, firearms offences, defeating the ends of justice and breaching immigration law because the gun was never found. He was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday.
Mugabe was ordered to pay a 400,000 rand (£17,851) fine for pointing a toy gun in a way that was likely to be seen as a real firearm from a separate incident in 2023. He was also fined 200,000 rand (£8,919.50) for breaching immigration law. He had pleaded guilty to both offences. The judge ordered police to take him to Johannesburg international airport for deportation to Zimbabwe.
Judge Renier Boshoff told Mugabe: “I do not know whether the second defendant has taken the blame and I can only act on what is before me.”
The judge said the sentences were commuted because the two men pleaded guilty, the time they had spent in prison since the February 19 shooting and the fact that the victim, Sipho Mahlangu, 23, wanted to withdraw the charges after being paid by Mugabe and Matonhodze. Prosecutors had sought long prison sentences for both men.
Investigating officer Raj Ramchunder told the sentencing hearing on April 24 that Mahlangu was paid 250,000 rand (£11,150) and promised a further 150,000 (£6,690).
Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe for almost 40 years, initially as a hero, ending white minority rule in Zimbabwe. His rule became authoritarian and presided over hyperinflation and economic collapse. He was overthrown in a coup in 2017 and died two years later at the age of 95.
Mugabe and his older brother Robert Junior, 34, became famous for sharing their lavish lifestyle online in the 2010s.
In 2017, their mother, Grace Mugabe, avoided a lawsuit in South Africa by citing diplomatic immunity. Model Gabriella Engels accused the former First Lady of hitting her with an electrical cord until she bled.
The judge said he also took into account the fact that Mugabe and his cousin were first-time offenders. Mugabe has had trouble with the authorities in Zimbabwe before.
According to reports in the Zimbabwean press, in 2024 arrested for allegedly attacking a police officer at a barricade. In June last year he arrested and released on bail for allegedly attacking a security guard at the gold mine. It was not immediately clear what the status of these two cases was.
