Simba Chikore Faces Bigamy Charges
Simba only obtained a formal dissolution of his marriage to Brooks on 23 April 2014 – one month and 23 days after marrying Bona.
Simbarashe Chikore, the son-in-law of the late former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, is allegedly facing serious legal consequences following the reports that he committed bigamy by marrying his wife Bona Nyepudzai Ouma while his marriage to Margaret Jeanine Brooks in the United States was still in effect.
Chikore had married Brooks in St. Louis County, Missouri, US, on 9 October 2000, and subsequently married Bona on 31 March 2014. However, Chikore only obtained a formal dissolution of his marriage to Brooks on 23 April 2014 – one month and 23 days after marrying Bona.
It appears that Chikore only sought to formally dissolve his previous marriage after marrying Bona in order to conceal his actions. Bigamy is a criminal offense in Zimbabwe, which renders Chikore’s civil marriage to Bona invalid. As a result, his claims to property in their estate may also be deemed invalid.
These reports have emerged in the context of an ongoing legal dispute, following Bona Nyapudzai Ouma Mugabe’s filing for divorce from her husband Simbarashe Mutsahuni Chikore, after nine years of marriage.
The couple married in 2014 at Mugabe’s Blue Roof mansion in Borrowdale, Harare, in a ceremony attended by African heads of state and government and other high-level dignitaries. They lived in a house donated by Mugabe himself, along Quorn Avenue in Mount Pleasant, Harare.
