Vice President Constantino Chiwenga collapsed in his office last week Wednesday and was flown to South Africa instead of his usual destination of China because of the coronavirus.
He was then spotted in Pretoria over the weekend in the company of his nieces Memory Chakuinga and her twin sister Evelyn. We also understand the VP visited two properties that were allegedly bought by his estranged wife Mary Mubaiwa using what Chiwenga claimed was externalised and laundered money.
Chiwenga is locked in a bitter divorce with Mary and last year got her arrested on charges of attempted murder, fraud and money laundering. The case is before the courts.
Chiwenga claimed his wife tried to kill him while he was on a hospital bed in South Africa before he was airlifted to China. He then spent four months receiving ‘life-saving’ medical treatment in China. A fresh-faced Chiwenga then flew back by private jet to Zimbabwe in November 2019 and was met at the airport by the Chinese Deputy Ambassador to Zimbabwe and Chiwenga’s relatives.
Political temperatures within Zanu-PF rose in November 2019 after a fresh-looking Vice-President Constantino Chiwenga arrived back in Zimbabwe from China where he spent four months receiving ‘life-saving’ medical treatment after he was airlifted from South Africa in July.
The defence argument has always been that Chiwenga did not report the alleged attempted murder to authorities in South Africa, where the VP was said to be on life-support.
In a bizarre turn of events, Nehanda Radio has been informed that Chiwenga over the weekend went to a police station in Pretoria to file charges of attempted murder against his estranged wife over 7 months after the alleged incident to try and rectify the weaknesses in his case against her.
The VP is now back in Zimbabwe. Mary has maintained that Chiwenga is suffering from “acute paranoia brought about by his poor health” and “his being under heavy doses of drugs, including un-prescribed opiates.”
Her defence team has argued that; “The primary evidence is said to be a medical report that shows the common cause fact that the Vice-President was in the hospital. We are not told that the medical report corroborates the facts alleged by the State. The report is completely and utterly useless to the State. That the Vice-President was ill and hospitalised is a notorious fact.
“We would have expected the State to produce a report from the doctors who allegedly resuscitated the Vice-President. This is impossible because such reports do not exist, for the simple reason that the incident did not occur as alleged or at all. No doctor who respects his professional standing will be made to perjure himself,” the lawyers argued in their defence outline.
“Laughable is the so-called last exhibit. The State says it has a photograph of a bloodied T-shirt that the Vice-President was wearing. Surely an exhibit of that nature, despite it being merely of circumstantial relevance would have been kept and safeguarded. A photograph of a bloodied T-shirt remains a photograph, it proves nothing and cannot override primary evidence.”
“Either the State is not telling the truth or Zimbabwe should be seriously worried about the state of security personnel who guard important individuals. The probability that this allegation is a recent fabrication is, therefore, high,” Mary’s bail application papers read.
“When he was in China, the applicant’s husband requested the President arrange to have her to be sent to him. He even sent his personal security with US$30 000 for her personal upkeep and use. All this happened after July 2019 and in applicant’s assertion, it is inconceivable that this would have happened that she tried to murder her husband. This case is as weak as it is fabricated.”
“On the charge of externalising money to China, the State has only evidence of one witness that the appellant will challenge at trial. She will state that the witness would not have any basis to assume or allege that the money was moved illegally nor is the witness telling the truth.
“The money does not belong to the appellant and, in fact, was money belonging to her husband, who should be the person in the dock, assuming an offence was committed.”
Source – Bulawayo24 News
