Wife of Zimbabwe’s Vice President charged with attempting to murder her husband
Wife of Zimbabwe’s Vice President, Marry Mubaiwa has been charged with attempting to murder her husband, Constantino Chiwenga.
Marry Mubaiwa appeared at the Harare Magistrates Court on Monday where she was also charged with money laundering, fraud and violating exchange control regulations following her arrest on Saturday evening.
It is reported that she tried to kill her husband in South Africa in July.
The facts in the charge sheet, she first tried to deny medical treatment to Chiwenga by insisting he stay at a hotel instead of a hospital when he was flown to South Africa for emergency treatment.
It added that it was later the security officers took the Vice President to the hospital.
According to the charge sheet, Mubaiwa allegedly went to the hospital on July 8 and asked the security to leave the room and while alone, she unlawfully removed the medical intravenous drip as well as a central venous catheter, causing the Vice President to bleed profusely.
She forced her husband off the hospital bed and tried to lead him out of the ward before being intercepted by his security details, it was alleged.
Chiwenga later went to China where he received medical treatment for four months and he returned to Zimbabwe in November. On his return from China, Chiwenga said he was suffering from “idiopathic oesophageal stricture”.
Background
Marry Mubaiwa was arrested on Saturday evening.
Zimbabwe’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) spokesperson, John Makamure, who made this known on Sunday but declined to give further details to the case.
An internal ZACC memorandum of the charges seen by Reuters news agency showed that between October 2018 and May 2019 Mubaiwa was accused of unlawfully transferring a sum of $919,000 to South Africa.
The transaction, according to the memo was done under the guise of importing goods.
The ZACC memo also accused Mubaiwa of fraudulently obtaining a marriage certificate without Chiwenga’s consent earlier this year when the vice president was ill.
The two have been married under Zimbabwe’s customary law since 2011 and have two children.