Former Zimbabwe First Lady Grace Mugabe is set to know her fate this week on a case filed by a lobby group challenging her diplomatic immunity. She is accused of assaulting a South African model late last year.
According to News24, the North Gauteng High Court is to make its ruling on an application by AfriForum over the decision to grant diplomatic immunity to Grace late last year.
According to a statement by the lobby, other interested parties will join the suit that will be heard on Thursday and Friday and will be pushing to have the immunity quashed.
“Should AfriForum be successful in having this diplomatic immunity to Mugabe set aside, it will pave the way for the [National Prosecuting Authority] to take steps to ultimately prosecute Mugabe,” read the statement in part.
In 2017, Grace, 52, almost caused a diplomatic tiff between South Africa and Zimbabwe after she allegedly stormed a Johannesburg hotel where her two sons were staying and assaulted a model, Gabriella Engels.
A furious Grace is said to have allegedly accosted Engel at the Capital 20 West Hotel while flanked with her bodyguards. She accused the model of partying with her sons Robert Peter Mugabe and Chatunga Bellarmine Mugabe.
Engels later took to social media and posted photos of the assault accusing Grace of whipping her with an electrical extension cord.
She claimed that the bodyguards watched as she was battered and sustained deep cuts to her forehead and the back of her head.
After an outcry over the issue and lobby groups demanding her arrest in South Africa, Grace was said to have been granted immunity and flown to Zimbabwe.
SDE
