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 has fined and ordered the deportation of Robert Mugabe’s youngest son over two unrelated charges.
Bellarmine Chatunga Mugabe, 28, and his cousin Tobias Mugabe Matonhodze, 33, were initially both charged with attempted murder after the incident on 19 February.
Earlier this month, Matonhodze pleaded guilty to attempted murder, firearms offences, defeating the ends of justice – as the gun was never found – and contravening immigration law. He was sentenced on Wednesday to three years in prison.
Mugabe was ordered to pay a fine of 400,000 rand (£17,851) for pointing a toy gun in a way that was likely to be seen as real firearm, over a separate incident in 2023. He was also fined 200,000 rand (£8,919.50) for breaking immigration law. He had pleaded guilty to both offences. The judge ordered police to take him to Johannesburg’s international airport to be deported to Zimbabwe.
The magistrate Renier Boshoff told Mugabe: “I do not know whether the second accused took the rap for you, and I can only act on what is before me.”
The magistrate said the sentences were mitigated by the two men pleading guilty to the offences, the time they had spent in prison since the shooting on 19 February, and because the victim, 23-year-old Sipho Mahlangu, wanted to withdraw the charges after being paid by Mugabe and Matonhodze. Prosecutors had asked for lengthy jail sentences for both men.
The investigating officer Raj Ramchunder told the sentencing hearing on 24 April that Mahlangu had been paid 250,000 rand (£11,150), with a further 150,000 (£6,690) promised.
Robert Mugabe ruled Zimbabwe for almost 40 years, initially as a hero, having ended white minority rule in Zimbabwe. His rule turned authoritarian, and he presided over hyperinflation and economic collapse. He was deposed in a coup in 2017 and died two years later aged 95.
Mugabe and his older brother, Robert Junior, 34, became notorious in the 2010s for sharing their lavish lifestyles online.
In 2017, their mother, Grace Mugabe, avoided a court case in South Africa by invoking diplomatic immunity. The model Gabriella Engels accused the former first lady of hitting her with an electric cable until she bled.
The magistrate said he had also taken into account the fact that Mugabe and his cousin were first-time offenders. Mugabe has previously been in trouble with authorities in Zimbabwe.
According to Zimbabwean media reports, in 2024 he was arrested for allegedly assaulting a police officer at a roadblock. In June last year, he was arrested and bailed for allegedly assaulting a security guard at a goldmine. It was not immediately clear what the status of those two cases was.
